The Distance in Your Eyes
by winter machine
Summary: Addison, Derek, and the infamous SGH prom. Except this time they leave halfway through, bound for Connecticut and a Montgomery family emergency that makes it impossible for them to keep ignoring their problems. Builds on a brief script-flip and takes off - pun intended - in Chapter 2. Addek endgame no matter how hard those two make it. UPDATED August 22.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Okay, before you grab the pitchforks and the flaming hot buttered rums, this is only a semi-new story. It builds on the script-flip at the prom, where Addison gets an emergency call from Susan about the Captain and she and Derek both leave early - before Derek and Meredith can commit their famous not-as-bad-as-what-Addison-and-Mark-did. Prom, as you know, is ripe for Addek flips, because so much changed during that party. I wanted to build on the couple-ness all Addek people know started to appear in the back half of season 2 and almost - almost - made it seem like they might be about to start fixing their marriage. Except at the same time, Derek was "friends" with Meredith in a semi-manipulative way that made him look a pushy jerk. Or a soulful good guy, depending on whether your name is Shonda. (And I say this with love. I love all four members of the original square-not-triangle, a lot.) As anyone who has read The Climbing Way knows, I love situations where Derek is forced to put aside his resentment/indifference and actually pay attention. In TCW, it was Addison's attack and subsequent hospitalization. Here, Addison is fine, but her family isn't. And that means Connecticut. It means rampant WASPiness and all the delicious Addek drama that comes with Connecticut: Archer. Mark (who still hasn't made up with Derek). Every other Shepherd in existence, including Derek's dear old mom. In time, in time. I was going to wait to write this but Chapter 2 popped into my head last night while I was checking flights, and here we are.

Same old disclaimer: I am not ditching any of my current WIPs, but some big ones are about to wrap up, and I am letting myself indulge a little in some new ones. (I'm still planning on writing Mark and Derek at Bizzy's funeral, btw, which is a whole different ball game.)

This chapter is just an edited, slightly better (!) version of the flip. The next chapter is all new, so feel free to skip ahead if you remember the basic premise. This chapter is Addison's, next chapter is Derek's. Enjoy!

* * *

 **The Distance in Your Eyes**

..  
..

 _Oh no, I've said too much. I've set it up..._

* * *

Silver balloons, bad tuxes, and non-alcoholic punch that does nothing to take the sting away from her date's attention being elsewhere.

It's a prom, all right.

She finds her husband at the aforementioned non-alcoholic punch bowl (it doesn't miss her that he's standing with the vet, and something tells her they're not discussing canine euthanasia) and nervous chatter starts spilling from her mouth before she can intervene.

"This whole thing is bringing back very traumatic memories of being a band geek with braces and a lisp and spending the whole evening with Skippy Gold spending the whole evening talking about _Star Wars_."

He's angled away from her while she talks. A quick flit of her eyes and ... yes, there it is. Her peripheral vision reveals Meredith greeting her date.

Her vet date.

She focuses on Derek. "So, you want to, um …dance?" She's the only one he'll publicly dance with.

So if he says yes, if he still says yes, then that's something.

"Love to," he says.

And he actually smiles. Her heart thumps against the bodice of her dress.

"Skippy didn't even want to ask me," she tells him. Forget punch, she's drunk on being this close to him and feeling his arms around her. She's a chatty drunk, and ... here it comes, more: "Bizzy made some sort of connection on the museum board and his mother wanted to curry favor. You know, the Connecticut version of arranged marriage."

She stops talking when he doesn't respond.

"Derek?"

"Yeah."

His hand is splayed between her bare shoulder blades – he's always liked dresses cut low in the back – and his other hand has hers tucked against his chest. She stops talking then, finally just enjoying the closeness, the warmth of his body connecting with hers.

His head touches hers, just briefly, and she remembers the way they swayed at their wedding, heads inclined toward each other, his curls brushing the elaborate updo that took almost an hour to take down in their suite that night …

They made the hour memorable, though. They made it count.

She considers reminding him of that night. Wonders if he remembers it.

If he remembers how happy they used to be.

At least he's dancing with her, even if he seems distracted. She inclines her head carefully, daringly, to touch his again and then something vibrates against her chest.

"Oh." She draws back. "Is that one of our phones, or are you just happy to see me?" She smiles nervously.

He smiles back, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

"Yours or mine?"

He reaches into the breast pocket of his tux and looks at the phone. "Yours." He's been carrying it for her since she doesn't have a purse; now he drops it into her hand.

"Sorry. See, that never happened at proms when we were teenagers. Progress, right?" She laughs a little in that nervous way again. "Let me just check... "

Her voice trails off.

"What?"

"It's Susan." She's staring at the phone. "Maybe she has spies in Seattle and she heard me take Bizzy's name in vain."

"Do you want to take it?"

"No, it's fine. Let's dance." She hands him back the phone and moves toward him again, already anticipating the rough-smooth brush of his sleeve against her bare skin.

But the phone starts buzzing again as soon as she's in his arms.

"I can power it down," she offers just as he says, "maybe you should take it."

"Okay. Just – don't go anywhere." She smiles at him like she's kidding and picks up the phone.

"Susan? This isn't really a good time – wait, what?"

She stops in the middle of the dance floor and girl she doesn't recognize steps on her foot in a sharp stiletto. She cries out in spite of herself, the girl mutters apologies and then Addison does too, into the phone. "No, I'm here, I'm listening. Where? Okay. Okay, I will."

And she flees toward the doors.

"Addison!"

She doesn't realize he's behind her until his hand reaches out, brushing her bare arm. "Where are you going?"

"I have to go." She stalks down the hallway, her shoes loud, the mermaid skirt of her dress inhibiting movement. She'd like to tear it off.

"You have to go where? Addison, slow down."

"I can't slow down."

"Why not?"

"It's my father. He's in the hospital. Susan said – Susan said it's bad."

 _It's bad._ That's not what doctors say. It's what scared families say. _You need to come. Come quickly._

"I'm sorry." His hand is on her arm, and she's shivering, suddenly freezing in her sleeveless dress.

"Derek ... it's bad."

"I'm sorry," he repeats.

She nods, her head feeling stiff. "I need to go out there, Susan's going to call me back with the arrangements. I need to go."

"I understand." He's nodding now too. His hand is still on her arm.

"It's been so long," she whispers.

Six years.

"I know." His face is grim when she tries to focus on it.

Of course it is.

He remembers too.

"Okay." She exhales heavily, trying to organize her thoughts. "So I'm – I'll just –"

Wait, where's her purse?

Her keys are in her purse.

"Addison?" He's looking at her, head tilted slightly.

"No, I just – I don't have keys. Wait, what am I doing? You have my keys. I think. No, you drove." Everything feels quick, blurry, she knows she's not making much sense.

"Addison." His hand is on her shoulder now. "I drove. I have keys. Let me drive you back so you can-"

"No. No, you should stay. Richard wants us all to stay."

"There are plenty of people here for his prom. You're too worked up to drive."

His arm is around her now, supporting her, and she lets him. She doesn't say _why weren't you looking at me?_ It suddenly doesn't seem important; her vision is narrowed to one small tunnel.

 _It's bad. You need to come._

She gives him a final out, as they push through the lobby doors.

"You can stay, Derek. You can stay and I'll go."

"It's a high school prom in a hospital cafeteria. Trust me, I'm not missing much. Besides, Richard saw us, we made an appearance."

"Okay." She nods slowly.

"You're shivering." He sheds his tuxedo jacket and drapes it over her shoulders.

She glances at him. It's an automatic movement, she knows, but she appreciates it as the warmth of the fabric surrounds her. it smells like him.

She dips both hands into the empty pockets of her husband's tuxedo jacket to warm herself and, with his hand at the small of her back, she lets him lead her to the car.

As the brightness of the lobby grows smaller, she realizes he's right. The prom is practically over, anyway. What could they possibly miss?

* * *

 _Only the rest of the show! Except not, because we flipped it. Okay, next chapter is the new part._

Title and under-bit from REM's Losing My Religion (of course)


	2. Chapter 2

**_A/N: And here's the new chapter (a more winter-friendly chapter length, that's for sure). I hope you enjoy!_**

* * *

"I need my black shoes."

She's stalking across the trailer with increasing speed and decreasing productivity, back and forth, the train of her red dress trailing on the floor behind her.

Derek just nods, having removed himself from the packing several circuits ago. He's had other jobs, of course, since they got back from the hospital prom – emailing Richard, calling a cab company under Addison's stern watch.

Now there's a leather carryall open on the bed, and she's alternating between putting things inside it and taking them out.

He figures they're at zero sum now and he checks the time as subtly as he can. "Addison…"

"My black shoes, Derek," she repeats. "I can't find them, and I can't leave without them."

She has to be kidding. She has at least ten pairs of black shoes here in the trailer – forget the ones in the brownstone.

He lifts one of the clear plastic boxes off the bed. "There are black shoes right here."

She grants them one dismissive look. "Not those, the other ones."

"Addison." He massages the back of his neck. "Does it really matter which shoes – "

"I haven't seen my father in six years!" She turns on him, eyes blazing. "Bizzy will be there. _Bizzy_ , remember her? You don't think she cares which shoes I wear? You don't think she can tell those black shoes from the other shoes? You don't remember – "

" _Addison_." He raises his voice to be heard over her tirade. She stops, blinking a little in surprise. "It's okay." He reaches for the shoebox. "I'll find the other black shoes. You just – pack something else in the meantime."

Slowly, jerkily, she nods.

She disappears into the bathroom, reappears with a train case of cosmetics, and then just stares at it.

"I need a drink," she says after a moment.

"You have a drink." He points to the tumbler on the bedside table. He made it himself, pressed it into her shaking hand minutes after they got back to the trailer. It's still more than half full.

She inspects what's left of the drink, drains it and then holds out the empty glass.

"I need a drink," she repeats.

Okay, so this is how it's going to go.

He could have predicted this, maybe should have predicted this – dealing with Addison's family has always been touchy at best, chaotic at worst.

Well.

Worse than that.

"Addison." He takes the empty glass from her hand and sets it down. "Let's finish packing first."

He waits for her to snap at him, for being patronizing, for saying _let's_ , for existing, but she just stares straight ahead as if she didn't hear him.

"Addie." He touches her stiff shoulder. "Just – pack whatever you really need. We can get anything you forgot when we're in Connecticut."

If his mother could hear him now, offering to replace perfectly good items, throwing money at his problems – but he's not a working class fatherless kid mowing lawns for a baseball uniform anymore. He's a surgeon. He can afford to throw money at his problems.

This land, this lakefront land?

Money. Thrown at a problem.

The trailer? More of the same.

He's just about to consider how horrified his mother would be by the price tags of the expensive fishing gear propped up in the corner when Addison finally speaks.

"She wanted us to fly private." Addison shakes her head. "Susan said she did, but I'm not – I said no."

He nods. Inwardly, he was relieved.

"Susan booked the tickets," she says, for the third time since they got off the phone. She gets up again and starts pacing. "I hate redeyes," she adds. "I really do."

"We can fly in the morning instead," he proposes.

"We can't fly in the morning!" She's looking at him like he's crazy. "Derek, Susan said it's bad. She said there might not be time left."

"Addie." He moves forward until he's succeeded in backing her up to the bed, which she sits on more out of gravity than anything else. At least she's off her feet. "You need to try to calm down before we go to the airport or you're going to end up on the no fly list."

"Very funny." Her face is pale despite the makeup he knows she's wearing. "Hilarious, Derek."

"Addison." He sits down next to her and takes her hand before she can stand up. "I'm not trying to be funny."

He realizes too late the absurdity of the situation, that Addison is still wearing her floor-length red prom dress, her hair in some elaborate braid thing, dangling earrings.

She seems to realize it at the same time, one hand rising to touch her hair, self-conscious.

"I need to change," she whispers.

He stands up and offers her his hand, turning her around automatically to help her with the zip on her dress. But it's so low on her back he's not sure where to find it. Or, come to think of it, how she got into it in the first place. They met at the hospital, they were both coming from other places.

"I have it, it's fine." She pushes his hand down distractedly, and he watches as she steps out of the dress like a snake shedding a second skin.

"Clothes," she says, standing in the middle of the trailer in her underwear, barefoot. "I need clothes."

"Clothes," he repeats. He glances around, trying to see if he can find something comfortable for the red-eye.

She snatches a stiff skirt from the pile instead.

Right.

 _Comfortable_ isn't exactly her thing.

She's strung so tightly he's focused, for the most part, on staying out of her way. He does the odd jobs, zipping the carryalls and unplugging things.

She spins around at the door, looking at him. "You don't have to come with me," she says.

This again.

"I know that," he says patiently. "I want to."

It's a lie, but in fairness, it has nothing to do with her cheating, with his running, with their quasi-reconciling.

In the course of their marriage, and in their engagement and the years they dated before that … during all those years, there's never been a time he's _wanted_ to see Addison's family.

Or to see her with them.

"Well, it's a long distance," she says. Her voice is sliding into that cold, haughty register, the one that reminds him of her mother. "And you have responsibilities here in Seattle, Derek. You're a department head."

"I know that," he repeats. "I can spare the time. I already told Richard, and he said we should take whatever time we need."

"I'm fine," she says, a bit of a non-sequitur. She reaches for the door and he moves to block her.

"Now what?" she snaps irritably.

"Shoes," he says, his tone mild.

"What? Oh," she says, looking down and seeming to register her bare feet. "Right."

He checks the time. They're endlessly patient in first class, as he's learned over the years he's spent with Addison, but even they have their limits.

"Addie … we should go."

"Hm?" She glances up from the blouse she's been refolding, then seems to see him for the first time. "You're not wearing that," she says sharply.

He looks down at himself. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"You're not wearing flannel to go see my family, Derek, you're not Paul Bunyan." She raises her voice when he starts to respond. "If you want to stay in your _fisherman fantasy_ , then stay in the trailer," she snaps. "I'll cancel your ticket and order the trout so it feels like you're right there next to me."

He just lets her run out of steam. She will eventually, she always does.

Normally, she'd be sorry at that point, but she's pretty far gone tonight.

"If you want me to change, I'll change," he says mildly once there's a pause for him to speak.

"Oh, you figured that out?" She shoves her hair out of her eyes. "Well done. And something with buttons, please, Derek, you're not a small-time college professor in Maine either."

So, this is what's complicated.

He's redressed in an Addison-approved outfit that's tight around his throat and his chest is tight at the thought of spending five and a half hours closed up in a metal tube with his wife's current mood. He's questioning everything, half wishing he'd taken her up on her offer to stay behind, even though he knows _it's about the vows_ and _in sickness and in health_.

And then, just like that, she's standing in front of him, her eyes raised fearfully, all the fight gone out of her.

"Derek … he might die before I get there," she whispers.

"He might." Derek keeps his voice low, gentle, in an attempt to soothe her. Surgeons can soothe even if they can't sugarcoat. "But he might not."

Addison's lips are trembling. He feels a little hollow like he always does when she's vulnerable. Protective.

"Addie…" He reaches a hand out toward her, just grazing the shiny material of her blouse before she pulls away.

"Well, I suppose all the scotch and cigars finally caught up with him," she says coolly. "Or maybe it was undiagnosed venereal disease. That can be vicious, you know."

… that's not the only thing that can be vicious.

…  
…

The car that comes for them is an old sedan with a massive back seat and those crushed velvet seats that seem to retain the odor of everyone who's sat there before. It smells strongly of smoke – which could be worse, but Addison looks nauseated anyway, wrinkling her nose when he opens the door for her.

"I can still drive us," he murmurs.

"And deal with parking? No, thank you, this will be fine. I'm sure I can have my clothes dry-cleaned in Connecticut. Or … burned." She smooths down her skirt, takes a deep breath like she's about to step into Rikers, and eases herself into the cab. She crosses her legs immediately, her dangling foot drumming the air.

A nice, relaxing ride.

As the driver leads them jerkily down the rough driveway – Addison is annoyed by every jump but she doesn't say anything – he glances over at her.

Her profile is sharp every time it's illuminated by passing headlights. Her shoulders are rigid enough for the military. He can see the strain on her face.

Six years.

He glances at his hand siting useless in his lap. Somewhat reluctantly, he inches it toward her. If she notices, there's no indication. He makes it halfway across the bench seat and then just … leaves it there.

 _Good work. Very comforting._

Addison never turns her head, and they travel the rest of the way to Sea-Tac just like that.

…  
…

What's nice about first class cross-country, in the same jets that could ferry them to Europe, is that they're shuttled through security without a line and into a half-deserted lounge, and no one bothers them until everyone else has finished boarding.

Wait, that's terrible. Elitist and terrible.

Not nice.

It's not who he is, not then and certainly not now. He's already uncomfortable in the stiff-collared shirt she made him wear. He compromised because this is stressful, not because he wanted to. He's flying in first because Susan bought the tickets.

Not that he hasn't on his own, but that's different. Those are reward miles. Points aren't elitist; if anything, they're populist.

And anyway, Addison doesn't speak to him in the lounge. She does drink half of a bottle of water he hands to her – they're on every surface like a first-class flyer might die of dehydration if they have to walk more than two steps for Evian.

Finally, they're escorted down the darkened jetway by two uniformed airport employees. All this money and he feels rather like he's being sent to detention, but at least they don't have to deal with lines.

He holds back at the end of the skybridge, urging Addison ahead of him into the plane, and then he blinks in the artificial brightness of the cabin.

It's a 747 and they're seated in the conical nose of the plane. He braces himself for Addison to complain – it's her least favorite setup, as he knows – but she's apparently too busy trying to ignore the flight attendant who's buzzing around them, giving them a tour.

"Our new lie-flat beds are state of the art," the flight attendant is murmuring now, like a proud mother. Her hair is so shiny it looks painted. "I can make them up for you as soon as we reach cruising altitude. Pajamas for you?" she asks sweetly.

Addison looks at the folded top and pants like she's being offered roadkill. "No, thank you," she says, barely hiding the disdain in her voice. "I will take a gin and tonic, though."

The Captain's drink.

"Addison," he says quietly.

"Make it a double," she adds, ignoring him. "Thank you _so_ much."

Then she turns to Derek. "Are you going to put my bags in the overhead compartment, or do I need to ring for a steward?"

"They're called flight attendants now," he says mildly, "and I would be happy to put your bags up. Sit down." He gestures toward the two oversized leather seats waiting for them and, huffily, she slides in toward the window.

She's scared, he reminds himself. That's all.

He focuses on her anxiously bouncing foot instead of her scowling face, and it's clear.

"Addison." He settles into the seat next to her. "Why don't you try to – "

"I hope you didn't put the Zurka in sideways."

He just blinks at her. It sounds like she's reading a page of Dr. Seuss to one of their nieces.

"Derek." She's staring at him as if he's the confusing one, and gestures impatiently to the overhead compartment. "Do I need to check?"

"No, you don't need to check." With effort, he sounds as patient as he wants to rather than as impatient as he feels. "I put it in fine. It's fine, Addison. Just – get your seat belt on so we can take off."

…

She doesn't speak to him again until after takeoff, until they're cruising five miles up and the flight attendants have descended like productive bees to turn their seats into surprisingly comfortable flat beds and dimmed the lights to near-darkness to encourage the passengers to sleep.

Well. He's comfortable – relatively so, anyway. Addison shook her head at him when he tried to take the airline's proffered pajamas, so he settled for loosening the shirt to give himself some room to breathe. And now he's lying down under a lightweight duvet, on a pillow, feeling rather disoriented on the dark plane.

The only familiar thing is her.

She's awake, of course.

She's breathing next to him, short nasal breaths that announce her displeasure.

She sounds the same at forty thousand feet.

She always sounds the same when she's annoyed. When she's not sleeping.

"Addison," he says tentatively, keeping his voice down because, it seems, the few other passengers in the first class cabin are already in REM. "I think you should try to sleep. It's going to be hectic when we get there."

"These beds are poorly designed."

"Well, they're not beds, first of all." He keeps his tone light. There was a time when she found him amusing, when he could tease her out of bad moods, even the ones her parents wrought.

Some of them, anyway.

"They're airplane seats," he continues, "and for airplane seats, I think they're pretty comfortable."

"Then you sleep," she says shortly.

"Addison …"

" _Derek._ "

He stops trying.

But he can't fall asleep either. Her breathing is loud enough to pierce through the sound of the engines, at least for him. Louder than screaming, _in_ out, _in_ out, _passive_ aggressive, _passive_ aggressive.

"Addison," he says, unable to take it anymore.

She glances at him with mild interest.

Okay, he didn't really have a plan beyond saying her name.

Except she's his wife and he's her husband and they're lying side by side like boys in boarding school. So there's that.

Their seats are connected, but there's a thick, wide armrest between them. But it ends around waist height. If they're creative, they can do it.

Or at least flexible.

He stretches out his arm. It's dark, but he can tell she's watching him.

 _Ow._

Inwardly, he curses. There's still a ridge in between the seats, and an uncomfortable one.

"What's wrong?" She looks up at him now, and he can see the whites of her eyes shining in the dark.

"Shh," someone says loudly across the cabin.

" _You_ shh," Addison snaps back before he can stop her.

Deciding a little discomfort is worth keeping her from starting a riot on the plane, he wriggles over until his arm is braced against the ridge that separates their seats. It's not comfortable, but it's something.

Addison doesn't move.

"Here," he says, feeling a little foolish.

Nothing.

What is she waiting for, a formal invitation?

"Addison," he hisses.

"It's fine," she says, making another exaggerated attempt to get comfortable.

"Oh, would you just – "

He stops talking.

Patience.

Her father is dying.

Her mother is … Bizzy.

"Addison," he says, as quietly as he can manage, wondering if there's an entry in Emily Post for this, "would you like to – "

" _Shh_ ," someone hisses from across the cabin again.

This time he's faster than Addison; before she can snap back at the other passenger he's taken her by the arm and hauled her over the divide so the top of her is lying against his chest, managing not to clock her with the armrest in the process.

He's pretty sure he's surprised her, based on how quiet she is, but even though she huffs a little with annoyance, she doesn't protest, and she doesn't get up.

Satisfied, he closes his arm around her, feeling a little like he's holding an angry cat. Her claws are in now, but ….

She still doesn't say anything. A little worried that he knocked the wind out of her, he touches her arm.

"Addie?"

"Shh," she says. "I'm trying to sleep."

Of course she's trying to sleep.

 _Now_ she's trying to sleep.

He can feel how tense she is, though, and despite himself he feels bad. He rubs her arm, a little unnerved by how long it's been since he's tried to help her fall asleep. Does he remember how? She flew alone from New York to Seattle, not that he would have been particularly inclined to help her with anything on that flight.

Some of the tension has drained out of her, and she's starting to feel a little heavier against him. Encouraged, he keeps rubbing her arm, as his own eyes drift closed and the constant hum of the engines lulls him into sleep.

…  
…

"Sir."

Vaguely, he's aware of someone talking to him.

" _Sir._ "

With some difficulty, he opens his eyes. He was dreaming – he's losing the edges of it even as he tries to remember its contents but they were residents, he's fairly certain, because Addison was wearing the red scrubs they used to wear then.

And he's in a strange on-call room now, with a low curved ceiling and an –

Earthquake?

He's jostled again, unnervingly.

"Sir, please, the captain has started our initial descent into JFK. I need to make up the bed now and return the seat to its upright position. If you could – "

And he jerks back to reality.

Plane. JFK. He's flying to New York with Addison. The Captain is hospitalized. Seattle is a whole country away from them, residency more like a universe.

"Yes. Of course. Sorry." He rubs his face, fully awake now. Someone's raised the shades throughout the cabin and early morning sunlight is streaming through the windows.

He's aware of pressure on his chest and then he glances down.

Addison is still sleeping – exhaustion combined with alcohol, nothing like it – some of her hair spread out on his pillow and he shakes her shoulder a little bit to wake her.

The arm underneath her has gone completely numb.

"Addie. Wake up."

The flight attendant is hovering. "Sir, I really need – "

"Just give me a minute," he says, annoyed. He tries to get some leverage to lift her off him, and fails.

" _Goooooood morning, ladies and gentlemen!_ " The Captain's voice booms over the loudspeaker and Addison wakes so suddenly he's surprised she doesn't hit the ceiling.

She looks startled enough that it would be amusing if not for the circumstances, her eyes huge in her sleep-flushed face.

"Addie. We need to get up," he mutters, thankful she can't see what her hair looks like right now.

She nods, looking dazed, and lets him help her untangle the duvet and climb to her feet. Sliding out of the lie-flat beds is no picnic, either.

The plane dips again and she curses, grabbing hold of him.

On the other side of the cabin, a woman sitting next to a preschool-aged boy frowns at her. Derek raises his eyebrows at her in return, half defending Addison and half judging the other woman right back for paying god knows what to fly a thirty-pound child in a seat that could house a fully-grown llama.

"This is why I needed you to get up," the flight attendant says, still deferential and sweet as pie, but Derek can hear her annoyance underneath it. The don't-die-and-make-me-have-to-do-a-bunch-of-paperwork voice. He's heard it before. He might even have used it before.

Flight attendants: the doctors of the sky.

He just holds onto the seat back with one hand and Addison in the other, willing the turbulence to wait until their seats are ready.

"All right, there you go. Please take your seats _and_ fasten your seatbelts," she says.

Derek ushers Addison in ahead of him to the window seat, and then settles in and buckles his own seat belt.

"Thank you," the flight attendant says, managing to keep most of the sarcasm out of her voice.

"Coffee," Addison calls as the flight attendant tries to turn around. "I need coffee."

"But ma'am, the Captain has started – "

"We're still twenty thousand feet up," Addison snaps. "I think you can manage to pull a shot of espresso before wheels down."

The flight attendant blinks and Derek has a quick flash of embarrassment.

But next to him, Addison is rubbing the bridge of her nose, a sure sign she has a headache.

"I'm sorry, we're in a bit of a … pressured situation," he says mildly to the flight attendant, wondering which of the two women he's glancing between is more likely to kill him right now. "I appreciate your help. If there's any way to get a cup of coffee –"

"Espresso," Addison corrects him. "Airplane coffee is swill. And make it a double."

"Please," Derek adds quietly.

The flight attendant inhales audibly, nods, and then turns on her heel and walks off.

"Addison," he says, his voice low, "you can't talk to people like that."

She stares out the window and doesn't answer him.

She could have flown private and been as charming as Bizzy, who in his experience – and what he's learned from Addison – never considers a flight worthwhile unless she got someone fired.

He rests his head on his hand for a moment.

It's been a long flight. They haven't even touched down yet and Addison is already this wound up.

He should do something. He should remember how to –

"Excuse me." Her icy voice cuts into his thoughts, and then before he can react she's brushing past him, into the aisle. He winces at the snarls in the back of her hair.

"Addison – "

She ignores him, takes her ridiculously large leather carryall from the overhead compartment despite dirty looks from more than one flight attendant, and disappears into the bathroom.

He's known her long enough not to be surprised when she emerges looking perfect. Her hair is flat and smooth again, her face alert and flawless from whatever she put on it, her clothing fresh and unwrinkled.

She restores her bag, snaps the overhead compartment shut firmly, and then slides past Derek to take her seat. She crosses her legs with a flourish and then closes her seat belt.

"What?" she says, looking at Derek.

"Nothing." He glances at the flight attendant making her way down the aisle. "Looks like your order's up," he says mildly.

"It's a double," the flight attendant says, her voice full of manufactured kindness. "I hope you enjoy it, Mrs. Shepherd."

"Dr. Shepherd," Addison corrects her, "and I won't. But thank you for your efforts."

She drains the shots of espresso as quickly as she drains any other drink, handing the empty cup to Derek who has apparently taken on the role of her assistant. He passes it to the flight attendant when she glides discreetly up the aisle.

Addison is twisted in her seat, staring out the window.

"What's taking so long?" she asks, irritated. "Are we ever going to get off this plane?"

Derek leans forward to glance out the window too. They're at least five thousand feet up still, maybe seventy-five hundred.

 _I don't think you'd like it if they let you out right now._

He can't say it, though, not this morning.

He's not going to bait her, and not just because the Captain is sick. Or because the Captain might die. It's more because the Captain lived, because he's her father, because Bizzy is her mother.

It never pays when Addison's family is in the mix. She's too tense, wound too tightly. This is how it goes: she starts acting shirty in that Bizzy-esque way that drives him nuts, and if he calls her on it he's rewarded with either floods of tears or a fire-breathing dragon.

Sometimes both.

It's no surprise that some of their worst fights have been caused by her family.

And now they're descending, foot by unwelcome foot, closer to JFK and the town car that's no doubt waiting to ferry them to Greenwich.

"Addison." He leans a little closer to her. She's anxious. He knows this.

It's not like he wasn't with her, six years ago, the last time she saw her father.

He's forgotten a lot, some on purpose and some not so much.

But that?

He's not likely to forget that any time soon.

"What?" Her voice is clipped and cold. "Derek. What is it?"

"Nothing," he says, hating the meekness in his own voice. There's no reason to be intimidated. Addison isn't actually her mother, no matter how decent an impression she does sometimes.

And as if to underscore his words, she looks at him for a moment and her face changes, the mask slipping a little. Her eyes are brighter now, with unshed tears, and her mouth trembles a little.

"Addie." He reaches over the wide armrest awkwardly to rest a hand on her leg. "It's going to be okay."

She doesn't respond, and he can see that she's fighting the tears. He glances across the aisle automatically. He doesn't want to encourage her to break down in public. It's certainly the last thing she would want.

He searches her face, trying to communicate comfort.

Even though his head is spinning.

Even though twelve hours ago he was standing in the hospital cafeteria in a haze of silver and black balloons watching Meredith dance with the vet.

With _his_ vet.

At least Addison didn't notice.

She has enough going on.

"Derek." She's looking at him now, and her voice quivers. "I don't know if I can – "

She stops talking.

He tilts his head, the pain in her eyes registering with him. "It's okay," he says. "The Captain's going to be all right."

She raises an eyebrow.

"Actually … with this type of aortic involvement, he's far more likely to die." She sits up a little straighter, recrossing her legs, her expression cold once more. "I'd expect you to know that, Derek."

Oh, yeah.

It's going to be a long trip.

* * *

 _To be continued. You get the idea. Not-quite-reconciled Addek, and plenty of WASP drama. I hope you'll let me know what you think! Thank you, as always, for reading and for being awesome._

 _PS Huge extra credit to anyone who recognizes a repurposed Derek line from Season 2 (here, said to Addison; there, not so much)._


	3. Chapter 3

_**Thank you so much for the feedback on the last chapter! I'm excited for this story. As you'll see, Addison and Derek will both get their say - at least in terms of narration. The rest is up to them...**_

* * *

Numbers.

Numbers are clean, cold, and comfortable.

Not comfort _ing_ , but comfortable.

Eighty percent of patients with the Captain's type of aortic aneurysm die immediately.

Of those who survive the initial event, maybe half of those will make it through surgery.

Half. Fifty percent.

The odds that he'll live: slim.

The odds that he'll die: not slim.

But she's a doctor and patients, of course, die all the time.

There's no question she can handle it.

"Excuse me?" She leans forward to be heard better, bracing herself against the overly soft leather seat. "Driver? Are you really planning to take the Throgs Neck at this hour?"

"Addison," Derek says quietly from next to her; she ignores him. Letting Derek select a bridge is like letting him select a tie: worthwhile only to humor him, and only when they have enough time for her to fix his mistakes.

"You want me to take the Whitestone?" the driver calls from the front seat.

 _Oh, you figured that out? Well done._

Bizzy may have sent the car, but she can't have approved the driver, not when he's this slow – mileage wise, and on the uptake. No matter how crisp his uniform.

Of course now Derek is _looking_ at her and she's annoyed even though he's not saying anything. It's that expression he gets, like he wants to apologize for her.

She hates that expression.

"Yes, please," she says to the driver. "The Whitestone would be lovely."

Even Derek can't complain she's not being _nice_ enough.

..

He hands her a bottle of water she didn't ask for from the cupholders in the wide leather armrest. The seats are plush and thick inside the town car, the air dry.

And her throat is dry in that particular way when she knows she's going to see her mother. It's one of the many ways her body betrays her, starting with her oversized feet – that was probably fourth grade – and picking up with her height (ungainly), her freckles ( _I told you to stay out of the sun, Addison_ ), the breadth of her shoulders ( _halter necks aren't for everyone, dear_ ). Of course her throat also dries up so that Bizzy can lift a disapproving eyebrow, ask her if she needs a glass of water, generally suggest that she's making everyone uncomfortable.

"Drink some water," Derek suggests.

She holds the bottle in her left hand.

Of course it's her left.

Derek got in the car first, and she didn't even have to huff at him about it. Practically a year in Seattle driving in a jeep and sitting in a rowboat and he hasn't forgotten how to get into a cab.

Even if he's forgotten the rest.

His right hand, next to her left. Her left hand, holding the water bottle. Her rings, holding the fourth finger of that same hand.

Her medals of valor, her officers' stripes.

Still wearing the rings. Still married.

In Seattle it makes sense; in Seattle her territory is new and unmarked and bizarre; the rings announce her and stake her claim.

Here, where people knew her before?

Well.

Bizzy knows, of course. What happened, before Derek left her.

She made clear her feelings on the matter. To the extent Bizzy has feelings, anyway. _Opinions_ might be a better word.

They had lunch – or rather, Addison was summoned to lunch, to the same bistro where Bizzy once brought one of the Captain's more ambitious conquests for the purpose of setting forth exactly what would happen if said conquest followed through on her threats to take their affair public.

Addison sat across from her mother at Bizzy's table – always Bizzy's table – legs tightly crossed, accepting thinly-veiled critique behind tight-lipped updates on her mother's various society activities. Speaking WASP, of course. It wouldn't do simply to berate her in public. But she managed to get her point across. _Unseemly. Not done. Really, Addison._

As if cheating wasn't her birthright, even if she managed to avoid it for thirty-nine years.

Well. Avoid doing it herself. Somehow, despite her own fidelity, she's been caught up in cheating her entire life.

 _Montgomeries look the other way._

Maybe her mistake was thinking she could be a Shepherd.

..

There's a specific stomachache she's always gotten on the way to her parents' house. It's tight and tense, different from the more hollow sensation on the way to Derek's mother's. (That one tends to lessen, too, the more of his sisters are present at the house.)

The ache is as familiar as the roads outside the window.

Just breathing in the recycled air of the town car makes her feel _caught up_ again.

Bizzy's car, Bizzy's driver, Bizzy's world.

Trapped.

Derek knows this, he's looking at her like he knows her. Just for a moment, like he's forgotten how he feels about her. That she's an obligation. For just a moment, she feels his warm hand on her bare back under silver tinsel. His focus on her for a moment, only on her.

"Addison."

The way he pronounces her name now – it's helpful, even if it hurts, because it reminds her that everything is different now.

So she focuses on looking out the window, watching the bleak not-quite-spring landscape disappear under the wheels of the car. The car that's just like every car that's ferried her up and down these roads, the driver like every driver. Sinking into familiar seats, anonymous and public all at once.

Carefully, she presses the flat of her hand against her stomach. That's supposed to do something, right? Ground her?

It doesn't.

When he says her name again she turns to him with annoyance. She'd like him to snap back, wouldn't mind provoking a fight to distract herself.

"We don't have to stay at the house, Addie," Derek says quietly. "We can get a hotel room."

It's that easy, for him to say.

Everything is easy for Derek.

She focuses now just past his shoulder, out his passenger side window. Avoiding his eyes is key.

"My mother expects us to stay at the house."

"Just because she expects it … doesn't mean we have to do it."

"Really, Derek? I know you don't like my mother, but is this really the time?"

When she looks at him now his expression is so annoyingly _patient._ "It's not about whether I like her or not – "

"Which is basically saying you don't. As I said. So, there's nothing else to say."

"Addison." He reaches for her hand; she moves it away, convinced the contact would burn. "I think it might be easier if we stayed in a hotel."

"Easier for whom?"

"Easier for you."

"Excuse me." She tucks her hair behind her ears, _keep those hands busy, can't be strangling you in the back of a town car, that would be unseemly._

"Addison. Staying in that house is – "

" – what my mother expects." She finishes the sentence for him, raising an eyebrow. "This is a difficult time for her, Derek. If you hadn't noticed. She could lose her husband. And even if their marriage means nothing to the Captain, it does mean something to Bizzy."

 _You'd know all about that._

She pauses, gathers breath, wonders how far she's going to take this.

Derek's face is blank again. Not annoyed, not solicitous, just … blank.

"Why don't _you_ stay in a hotel?" she asks, purposefully making her tone sound sweet.

He shakes his head. "Addison. It's fine. We'll stay at the house."

"No, really, Derek. I would hate for you to be uncomfortable."

"Addison."

"I'll stay at the house, and you can get a hotel room. There are some lovely inns along the coast – you wouldn't even have to give up your daily fishing habit."

"Enough," he says quietly, but the warning is clear.

So she continues.

"I mean, I lived in a hotel in Seattle for a month, until you decided I was good enough to move into your midlife crisis, so I know how _warm_ hotels can be compared to the alternative, especially when – "

"Addison!" He cuts her off loudly and she stops talking.

He's glaring, shaking his head.

She just sits back against the seat, satisfied.

Derek lost his cool first; Addison wins.

Checkmate.

That's the rule.

And if it feels like a loss – well, that's probably just the jet lag talking.

..

There's low heat blowing from the vents, so that it's neither warm nor cold. Just stale.

She's cold anyway.

She's always cold here.

Isn't that what Derek said, his first time? It was _cold._ They were cold. Cold and hard, like ice.

 _You're not like them._ That's what he assured her, and she was young and naive enough to melt against him with the promise of it: _you're warm_ , he said, _warm and soft_ and she was, in his arms.

Warm, and soft … and stupid.

When he tries to catch her eye she avoids it, in the practiced way that will make certain he knows she's avoiding it.

Let him go back to sulking.

Let him go back to Seattle.

..

"Have some water," he says, a few miles later, indicating the bottle that's still in her hand, barely warmer than before.

She can tell from his tone he's a little sorry for raising his voice.

She's not sorry, though, and the bottle stays capped.

..

"Addie."

"What." She doesn't turn around. There's traffic on the Hutch, of course, but it's preferable to feeling claustrophobic between trucks.

She already feels claustrophobic enough.

 _What_ won't do when she's back in Connecticut. _What_ is rude.

What would Derek say if she said _pardon_ instead?

He's saying something now. Talking.

"Are you sure you don't want to stop at the house first, drop off our things before we go to the hospital, shower …?"

She's sure that she doesn't want to see that house.

And since she has to, she's in no hurry to make _has to_ start anytime soon.

"We came here to see the Captain, Derek." She can hear her clipped tone, so he probably can too. Fine. "Since he's probably going to die, I think we should _probably_ try to get to the hospital without unnecessary delays."

He doesn't say anything.

"But by all means, take the car to the house after it's dropped me off. You can relax there while I'm at the hospital."

 _You're not necessary,_ that's what she's telling him.

It's not true, not really, but _necessary_ is different here, in her parents' world.

Here, needing things is bad.

And needing people is worse.

..

Six years.

Six years since she's seen her father.

He was holding a drink the last time; he was always holding a drink.

He won't be holding a drink now.

..

Derek is thanking the driver now, so polite, so humble, her husband, no matter how brilliant he might be, no matter the size of his portfolio. A true man of the people.

She rolls her eyes when they shake hands.

Then she has nothing left to say because they're standing in the cold damp air, not spring but not winter either, every molecule of wind on her tongue different from the taste of Seattle.

"Addison!"

Susan is flying toward her in a rush of perfume – Bizzy's perfume, light and familiar, she's clearly spent all day with her.

They hug.

Susan is a hugger, presumably down to age although she and Addison are close in age and Addison certainly wouldn't consider herself a hugger.

But still, Susan tends to be the only breath of sanity in the Montgomery world and that's something.

More than something.

Susan is hugging Derek now – more formal, less sisterly – and she's thanking him. "I know Bizzy really appreciates your traveling all the way out here. It's a long trip."

"Of course."

"Let me take that." Susan is relieving Addison of her larger bag, and she can feel Derek tensing next to her.

Like there's something wrong with Susan taking her bag.

This is what Derek does, acts like her world is the one with the unspoken rules and judgment and then stands by her side with his hackles up at perfectly normal things like this.

Judging.

What about _his_ rules?

 _His_ mother?

… but she supposes that's a question for another time.

For now it's enough to keep moving, one foot in front of the other.

..

Every hospital of her career has smelled similar when you first walk in, with mild variety on the same themes: Disinfectant (lemon or that horrendous flowery scent), gummy hospital food (either sweet, like pudding – vile – or sweaty, like meat), bleach, and bodies. So many bodies. Perfume, deodorant, that specific stress-induced perspiration.

And coffee.

Always coffee.

They're met by a patient services representative, _of course they are_ , and she doesn't dare look at Derek because she knows what he thinks.

They're led upstairs, across a hallway with sun slicing the linoleum floors, to a set of large locked pine doors.

The VIP wing.

It's not labeled, of course. That would be tacky.

Inside, there's a tea service set up by the nurses' desk, sleek Maplewood furniture and calming pale greys and blues. The couches are thickly cushioned, can't expect the women who come here to have their own padding.

Not in this wing.

Introductions, handshakes, _so sorry_ , and they're mercifully left alone when they get to what must be the Captain's room.

She could have predicted it. It's on the corner, and high up enough that there will be sweeping views, sunlight from two angles.

He always gets the best rooms.

There's a vast anteroom before they even reach his room, with a walk-in closet; she recognizes the familiar pattern of Bizzy's trademark bags on one of the hassocks.

Has she … slept here?

No, of course not. She must have packed a bag for the Captain.

"Addie." Derek is taking her other bag now, setting it down. Doing his husbandly duties. Fulfilling his obligations.

He's good at that.

He didn't have to come with her. He could have stayed behind at that ridiculous prom Richard insisted on. Could have stared openly at Meredith without Addison there to try to distract him. In that black dress … Derek never liked black dresses. He liked color. He liked low backs so he could touch her bare skin – a little frisson of pleasure for both of them on a conservative dance floor.

He's only ever danced in public with her, but if she'd left him there – maybe all that would have changed.

Of course he insisted on coming with her, draping his jacket over her shoulders, driving her, all the things he was supposed to do.

She could have left him in the trailer, insisted on going to Connecticut alone.

But he would have pushed back. Did push back, a little. To make sure he would fulfil his obligations.

Such a good guy.

They leave the anteroom and her heart stops.

..

The bed is empty.

The bed is _empty._

Fear gushes through her.

Fear … and regret.

 _I'm too late._

"Addie." Susan is touching her shoulder. She can feel Derek's arm around her, on the other side, but she's numb everywhere else now.

Like a limb that's fallen asleep.

"Addison, your father's in surgery, so you can dispense with the dramatics."

Just like that, in time with the rhythmic click of Bizzy's heels on the hard floor, she wakes up again.

Prickling and in pain … like a limb that's fallen asleep.

When she can see again she sees her mother, crisp and elegant with no sign of grief, scarf settled perfectly on her shoulders. She's talking to Susan now, her voice low, almost conspiratorial.

 _Susan doesn't like you either!_ A younger, pettier Addison often longed to hurl that at her mother. But not today.

"Susan, I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience."

Bizzy looks at her when she says _inconvenience._

 _Nice to see you too, mother_.

"Bizzy, it's fine," Susan reassures her. Her voice is calm and soothing, as always. "You know I'm always happy to spend time with Addison. We don't get to see her enough."

Bizzy is looking at her now, sizing her up, but she's frozen in place.

Still uncertain. So he's in surgery. Not dead.

"So he's – alive?" she stammers. "Definitely?"

"Well, you'd have to ask his surgeon, dear," Bizzy says coolly, "but he was alive when they started, at least judging by his reaction to the nurses."

"Oh." Her knees feel weak, suddenly. There's that arm at her back again, warm and strong – she could lean into it, but that would be a mistake.

She leans away instead.

The Captain … alive.

Did she even want to see him?

Why is she so relieved?

"Derek," Bizzy is greeting her husband now like a business associate, like the son of one of her society friends. "How was your flight?"

"It was fine. Thank you. I'm sorry about the Captain," Derek says. He sounds … normal, like every word isn't a weapon that means something else entirely.

"Yes." A Bizzy-style acknowledgement. "Well. I told Susan to tell Addison you should fly private. The commercial schedules are so unforgiving."

"The flight was fine."

Derek sounds blurry now, like he's underwater. Is she supposed to join the conversation? Why can't she remember what she's supposed to do? Everything here is _supposed to do_ , so why is it failing her?

"Addison."

She glances up.

Her mother is just … standing there, looking elegant and unruffled as always.

Looking back at her.

Scanning, as she does. Looking for fault. She never has to look long, not in Addison's experience.

She braces herself.

"You know, dear, the west coast may be more … informal, but surely they have irons there nonetheless?"

Her hands fly automatically to her skirt, smoothing the wrinkles she should have known her mother wouldn't miss.

"Susan?" Her mother has already turned away, signaling to her assistant. "May I see you outside, please."

No question mark. Bizzy doesn't ask.

Susan pauses on her way out to give Addison a quick hug. "You know what happens when the Dragon calls," she whispers.

Addison lifts a hand to pat her back, weakly, a little too late. The hug is already over.

And then she's alone in the empty room, neatly made bed – won't do to be messy here in the VIP wing – staring back at them.

"Addie."

Alone with her husband, that is.

Which as the last months – no, the last year at least – have taught her, is even more alone.

He says her name again.

"Derek, _what?_ " She turns on him annoyed, her voice rising. "What do you want?"

"I want you to calm down," he says, his voice perfectly calm already – of course it is – " but barring that, it sounds like it's going to be a while until your father is out of surgery. You don't need to wait in his room."

"Where am I supposed to wait, then?"

"Let's get a cup of coffee," he suggests. "Eat breakfast."

"I'm not hungry."

"No coffee, then?"

He's irritating her but she can't deny some caffeine would be nice.

A drink would be nicer, but still … caffeine would be nice.

"Fine," she says shortly. "Coffee's fine."

She sits down, heavily, on one of the couches. Crosses her legs quickly, in case Bizzy comes back any time soon.

Derek is just standing there, still.

"What are you waiting for?"

He frowns. "You want me to go get coffee and bring it back to you?"

"What else would you do?" She taps her foot impatiently.

"I thought you would come with me," he says.

"You _just_ said I should sit down."

"Addison." He runs a hand through his hair. He looks tired; her mother will have noticed his unshaven cheeks. She'll say something.

Not right away, but when it suits her.

"Look, Addie, I know this is stressful."

"It's fine."

"Okay, it's fine, but it's also stressful and I am trying to be supportive here."

"Of course you are, Derek. You're always _trying_ something."

"Addison – " He looks like he's about to say something else, then thinks better of it.

Good.

She'll push a little more, he'll get fed up and walk away.

She's done this dance before. This dance is one neither of them minds doing in public.

"Just come with me," Derek says. "Stretch your legs, criticize the coffee beans."

"Why?"

 _You once told me you'd never leave me alone with my parents, not again – but I know you don't remember that, because you don't remember any of it._

"Because I'm asking you to," he says simply.

"Can't you just go get it and bring it back here?"

"No. I can't." He holds out his hand. "Addie. Come on."

Reluctantly, she puts her hand in his. She lets him tow her to her feet, doesn't help. If it's a struggle, he doesn't let on. They're very close once she's standing up, close enough to see his eyes are tired, matching his unshaven jaw.

"Coffee," she says, and hates that her voice has a tremor in it. A weak one.

"Coffee," he repeats. "That's all I'm asking."

He rests a hand on her back as they walk down the hall. It's his left. There's no ring on it, no signifier that he's hers.

Anyone walking behind them would think he's a stranger.

There's a tea service waiting for them in the VIP area, an espresso machine, a discreet uniformed worker ready to serve them.

She shouldn't be surprised, though, when he pushes the wall switch to operate the doors instead, leading them away from the private wing and into the rest of the hospital.

Out of her world and back into his.

Checkmate Derek … this time.

But there will be other chances.

* * *

 _ **To be continued. I know it's a slow time on the site right now, buuuuuut I'm on a roll, so do me a favor and feed the beast. Reviews make the world go 'round.**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry for the delay in updating this story! I got the muse-foot kick in the pants I needed and now I am a lot more certain what needs to happen next. So here we go. It's Derek's turn now, if you've lost track ...**

* * *

There's a feeling he gets sometimes when he's compelled to spend time with Addison's family. Maybe it comes from how closely he feels like he has to watch her.

Somehow, he's an intern again, on rounds, presenting a patient.

 _38-year-old female presenting with unresolved childhood trauma and co-morbid marital distress. Allergies include sensible shoes, airplane coffee, and fidelity._

"Addison." He reaches for her blackberry, but she pulls back before he can touch it. "Can you just – take a break for a minute?"

She ignores him, sipping her coffee again and making a face. "This is swill."

 _Also allergic to hospital coffee._

"I'm sorry it's not gourmet. It's a hospital cafeteria."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

 _Definitely not allergic to sarcasm._

He doesn't rise. He's been married to Addison for eleven years; he's no stranger to the way she provokes him when she's under stress.

Particularly Montgomery stress.

He used to be better at handling it.

He used to be a lot of things.

"Will you eat something?" he asks quietly.

"In the cafeteria? What do you suggest, a bag of Cheez-Its?"

Frankly, he'd suggest anything that would occupy her mouth sufficiently to keep her from bitching at him.

"What do you want to eat?" he asks patiently.

"Nothing," she says.

Okay, he walked into that one.

He slumps down in the padded chair, watching Addison with her rigid posture and sharp movements across the table. It smells ... wet in here, the warmth of the large room not entirely unpleasant. People move in and out, fluorescent lights highlight the shadows under their eyes. She's still staring at her blackberry.

"What are you doing?" he asks finally.

"Reading."

"Reading what?"

"Articles my fellow sent," she says.

She doesn't have to tell him what kind of articles, and he shouldn't be surprised.

Naturally, she's reading up on the Captain's condition, on the surgery he's undergoing. She's analyzing procedure and prognosis and coming up with her own complaints and critiques, no doubt.

Ordinarily he'd expect her to go straight to the head of cardio.

But of course she can't do that now.

Which just reminds him of everything they left behind in Seattle. There was something foreboding about the prom. Something more than just the tragedy that preceded it or the administrative chaos surrounding Denny Duquette. Something was … building, that night, and he has the sensation that they left before it could come to fruition.

Three thousand miles away, Seattle seems tiny. Foreign.

Or maybe it's how big and cold the air feels when he's required to spend time with Addison's family. No matter how much kindling the butler threw on the grand fireplaces, it was always chilly.

As if she feels it too, she shivers a little.

"Cold?" he asks.

"No."

Of course not.

"What did you find out?" he asks, nodding toward her blackberry.

She makes a face that serves as a shrug, for her. "The odds aren't on his side," she says after a moment.

Addison is a surgeon – an extraordinary one – and _odds_ aren't usually her term of choice. But he nods, taking her point.

He's holding his own cup of coffee halfway to his lips when she speaks again.

"There's nothing we can do."

The words are words they use to describe a terminal patient; he realizes Addison is using it only to illustrate their helplessness. The way they are just _family_ here, not doctors, and have no role in the Captain's care.

..

..

The day of his engagement party, the Captain invited him to have a cigar. Naïve and wanting to please his almost-father-in-law, Derek accepted.

There was something off-putting about Addison's father, and magnetic at the same time. Attraction and revulsion, all at once.

His hair was perfect. Perfectly windblown on a sailboat, perfectly _not_ windblown at a cocktail party, but always perfect. The same went for his clothing. His shoes. His tennis racket, the time he challenged Derek to a match.

The cigar made his throat burn. It was nothing like the pilfered cigarettes he and Mark would sneak behind Bartlett's Grocer after school.

But he smoked it anyway, out of what – loyalty to Addison, whose big pleading eyes begged him not to judge her family too hard, not to judge _her_? His own schoolboy desire to fit in?

Because there was a time before he knew the Captain and the damage he'd wrought where he wondered what it would be like to get to know someone else's father.

Maybe whoever raised Addison, his brilliant girlfriend who made him laugh, who made him _crazy_ , would accept Derek too.

All that disappeared once he learned a little more.

 _You're nothing like my father_ , he thought that the first time he met the Captain. The Captain's swagger was brash. His eye was roving.

Such is life: loyal, humble Christopher Shepherd was dead with his Sunday leaf piles and evenings on the shag rug teaching his children how to play chess, and fickle, arrogant Charles Montgomery was alive with his barely-hidden peccadilloes and months-long jaunts to Europe.

It just wasn't fair.

He was old enough to know that's not how it worked.

But he was young enough for the unfairness to sting.

When he joined the crowd for the engagement party and Addison winced a little at the cigar on his breath and he apologized into her long fragrant hair he was reminded of something else, something he wished he had the courage to say to the Captain:

 _You're nothing like your daughter._

..

..

"They should have an update by now."

"Do you want to go back to his room?"

She looks at him for a moment. "No," she admits.

This is their dance: every time the mask falls, just a little, he's drawn back in, and then _boom_ , the door slams again. She's a siren and he's a hapless sailor and then he remembers her father is the _Captain_ and it's all a little too Greek for him.

In the maze of Montgomery dysfunction, Addison is still Addison.

And he has to remember that.

So he has to remind himself.

He reaches for her hand anyway.

"I don't want to be here," she whispers.

"I know." He rubs his thumb over her the back of her hand. What he is noticing and would never tell her is the prominence of veins he couldn't see when he first noticed her hands, holding a scalpel and standing over a cadaver. She was so young that day. They both were.

He would never tell her because she would be offended, angry, maybe hurt. For the same reason he pretends not to notice that she gives her hair the occasional touch-up or that although she's still Addison, she can't drink _quite_ as much as she used to be able to.

For someone who statedly loathed her childhood and adolescence, his wife has never exactly prized the process of aging either.

Maybe the answer is in Bizzy, who is as immaculately styled and dressed as she always has been, according to Addison and as far as he can see. Her hair is the same shimmering blonde he sees in old photographs.

That wasn't what he grew up with.

 _Why should I dye my hair_ , his mother used to ask rhetorically, _when I've earned every one of these greys?_ She'd name them as they grew in: there was the patch when Lizzie had appendicitis, the strands when Kathleen learned to drive, a whole swath for Derek and Mark's brief foray into motorcycles.

"Addie," he says.

She's looking down at their joined hands.

"Abdominal aneurysms can result in sexual dysfunction," she recites without inflection. She glances up at him. "The Captain will wish he were dead if that's the case, don't you think?"

Derek doesn't say anything.

"Although _sexual dysfunction_ is kind of his hallmark, but not in that particular way."

"Addison…"

"I don't think Bizzy is prepared for the possibility that he won't make it through surgery," she says.

 _I don't think you are either_ , he doesn't say.

"She's still in love with him. After everything he's put her through, she loves him." Addison isn't looking at him, she's focused on the rings on her left hand, turning them in a deliberate circle.

"It's sort of touching, isn't it?" she asks after a long silence. "I mean pathetic, yes. But also sort of touching too?"

He's not really sure what to say. _Touching_ isn't exactly a term he associates with either of the senior Montgomeries.

..

..

When Derek was a third-year medical student, he watched his girlfriend's brother, who he knew to be dating a woman named Phoebe, successfully hit on – and then leave a bar with – a different girl. A girl with a nose ring and, in Archer's ever-tasteful parlance, _one of those really hard aerobics bodies, you know what I mean, right, Shepherd?_

"I know, it's not ideal," Addison said at the time, once they'd left.

Her tone was all brush-off.

Breezy.

"It's just how Archie is."

Derek blinked. He was young, yes, but he had his own ideas about fidelity, his own admittedly rather rigid moral code. He spent a weekend in Nantucket with Phoebe, and he was fairly certain Phoebe wouldn't be too happy with _just_ _how Archie is._

"Does Phoebe know?" he asked.

Addison stared at him like he had an extra head. "Of course not."

"Someone should tell her. You should tell her."

"I should – are you serious?" Addison's eyes widened even further. If possible. "I would never do that."

"Don't you think she should know?"

"That's a different question." Addison played with the stirrer in her drink. "It's none of my business, Derek."

"So you're just going to … look the other way?"

"Yes. I am. But hey … listen to you, Derek." Addison downed the rest of her drink and grinned at him, though the smile didn't really reach her eyes. "Two years with me and you already know the Montgomery family motto."

There's a mean part of him now that thinks he should have taken that as a warning.

Except for years – and years and years – the idea of using Addison's family against her was anathema. He was the one who picked up the pieces when she couldn't avoid them.

..

..

There's so much time in hospitals.

There's not enough time.

But still there's so much of it.

It takes different shapes for doctors and patients and the families who wait for news.

Great swaths of time, fluorescent lit and scented with bleach.

Everything is daytime.

Everyone is tired.

..

There's a game he started playing in Seattle.

He looks at his wife, across a table or the flat miles of their shared bed or the back of her when she steps into the shower unaware of his gaze.

He focuses and tries to summon what they used to have. How he used to feel.

He decided long ago he could control his feelings. Control is necessary, for a surgeon. Precision. Calm. Emotions have no purpose.

So he looks at her.

 _38-year-old female presenting with passive aggression and far too much pride considering her affair. Treatment so far includes snubbing her in hospital hallways and ignoring her attempts to curry favor she doesn't deserve._

She's been driving him crazy in Seattle – not the way she used to drive him crazy, when he couldn't keep her off his mind or his hands off her body. She would fill up his senses so his lips tasted like her for hours, days, and it was the pounding of her heartbeat he heard when he closed his eyes in the shower.

In Seattle it's different.

In Seattle he's angry.

He looks at her, and he no longer hears the steady beep of more than a decade of marriage. Vitals. The way they must have sounded in New York. Steady and unremarkable, but without harm.

Now he hears the shrill call of a stopped heart.

He hears _Code Blue_.

Sometimes he hears _hurry_!

But at least they haven't called time of death.

Not yet, anyway.

..

"I should call my brother," Addison says, breaking another long period of silence.

Derek nods.

"Susan probably called him already, though." She's playing with the plastic rim of her paper coffee cup. She doesn't want to call him, apparently.

He doesn't ask why.

"I'm sure Susan called him," he says.

He just gives her the out.

At least that's something he can do.

..

They sit there like this, Addison resolutely scrolling through her blackberry, reading articles on her father's prognosis, avoiding his gaze.

He can see a lot more when she looks at him.

She can hide a lot more when she doesn't.

Showing the Montgomery family anything is a mistake. This is what he's learned from Addison. And this is what he's easily supported through his own experiences.

Showing weakness, showing vulnerability. It's just another way to arm them.

He can pinpoint pretty much every dysfunction in his adult wife to the child she was – map the the perimeter of the hole they left in her, the one it sometimes seems nothing can fill. Does that make it better when he wants to walk away? Worse when he wants to stay?

..

He's leaning back in the padded cafeteria chair, scrolling through emails. He can see from the way she's holding the paper cup of coffee, the weight of it, that she's almost ready for a refill.

Even if it's swill.

He gets up to get her another cup without asking; she takes it without speaking.

His watch says the Captain is still in surgery.

His watch says their day is just beginning.

"There should be news by now," Addison says abruptly, a few minutes later. If something triggered her to speak he didn't notice it.

"Susan would reach out, if there were news," he says tentatively.

Addison nods at this, and he's relieved.

Privately, he thinks it would be just like the Captain to die on the table without any chance for his daughter to get something that resembles closure.

He'd wait, of course, for Addie to fly across the country first. The Captain is used to snapping his fingers and getting what he wants.

It used to work on Addison.

Until six years ago, anyway.

..

"Did Bizzy seem worried to you?"

He's letting Addison lead the conversation, or lack thereof. She's sitting down and even chasing some of her coffee with water so he can't complain too much.

Sometimes she talks.

Sometimes she's quiet.

He rubs at a crick in his neck while he decides how to answer. Sitting like this is leaving him stiff.

He feels old.

He feels unsure, because _yes_ might please Addison – to think her mother was showing feeling, and _yes_ might upset her because it means her father is worse off than she thought.

 _No_ might seem callous.

 _No_ could be comforting.

"I don't know," he says finally.

"Yeah. I don't know either." She leans back in her chair, lifting her eyebrows. "At least Susan's here so she has someone to support her."

Derek doesn't say anything. He doesn't have anything nice to say to that. It could only be something about Bizzy having to pay people to support her, or pointing out the severe unlikelihood that, wherever she is, Bizzy is concerned with whether someone is supporting her daughter.

So he just nods.

"Maybe I should check on her," Addison says after a moment.

This strikes him as a terrible idea. But he's been married to Addison for eleven years. If he says it's a terrible idea, she'll turn on him. Blame him for his honesty, for not participating in the traditional Montgomery glossing over of anything ugly.

If he pretends it's _not_ a terrible idea, though, and then she does it – and then gets hurt – he'll have to pick up the pieces.

He doesn't know which way is worse for him.

The odd thing is, Addison gets hurt either way.

"I'm sure Susan is looking out for her," he says.

..

He's offered more than once to go back – somewhere. Somewhere more comfortable. Surely in the ridiculous VIP area there's a lounge or a spa or something with softer lighting and less of a lingering smell of the boiling water that keeps cafeteria food semi-warm.

But he gets the sense they're in détente of a battle he never agreed to fight. Addison is in the cafeteria with nothing but her posture and her shoes to separate her from everyone else. She thinks _he_ doesn't want to be anywhere more comfortable.

What she would say, if she joined in this conversation, is this: _Oh, Derek? You know he prefers martyrdom as long as he can still enjoy the finer things in life._

They'd banter. He'd say, _you don't know me that well._

She'd say: _what'll you bet?_

It would be the kind of bet where neither won and neither lost and they ended up out of breath and deeply satisfied.

He misses those kinds of bets, sometimes.

..

Addison isn't crying. Of course she isn't. They're in public, and people are watching.

He stretches his cramped fingers and remembers that Addison has seen him cry.

She has cradled his head and absorbed his tears and it's this vulnerability she's witnessed that makes him the angry now when he thinks of what's happened to their marriage. Empty.

He has seen _her_ cry.

He has made her cry.

He knows exactly what she looks like when she's trying not to cry and the flicker in her eyes – one that means she's going to win the battle and one that means she's going to lose.

Her fingers are so tight on her blackberry now that her knuckles have lost their color.

"Addie."

She looks at him, and there's a sheen of moisture covering the indefinable color of her eyes.

He could say, _it's okay._

He could ask, _is there anything I can do?_

She'd snap at either.

"McKay wrote that paper for me last year on cerebral ischemia resulting from aortic arch aneurysms," he says. "You want me to email and see if he'll send a copy?"

Slowly she nods. "That would be nice."

..

He buys a sandwich when his own stomach's growling becomes audible. He doesn't make the mistake of offering her some, just leaves the second half untouched on the shudder-inducing Styrofoam plate, millimeters past what could fairly be called _his side_ of the table.

She eats a few bites, eventually, without comment. She's engrossed in something else on her blackberry.

"We could take a walk," he suggests finally. Truthfully, he wasn't expecting when he suggested coffee that they'd be camping out in the cafeteria indefinitely.

"Actually, I want my laptop," she says quietly.

"Your laptop?"

"My article." She looks distracted. "The one I told you about last week, remember?"

He nods. He doesn't remember.

"I haven't had time, at – in Seattle. But I have time now, so I might as well work on it. I _want_ to work on it, but I don't have my laptop."

Right. It's in the Captain's hospital room, in the anteroom where they left their luggage. There's a silent moment where she tells him she doesn't want to go back to her father's hospital room, without words.

"Okay." He touches her arm, relieved at least that she doesn't flinch away. "I'll get your laptop."

She nods, and he leaves her sitting at the little round table decorated with the sad half sandwich and its little half-moon missing pieces.

He finds his way back to the VIP wing, with a brief black joke only he shares where he wonders if the doors will refuse to let him in.

 _Sorry, Shepherd, you're not Very Important. Maybe you could qualify as Marginally Important, but that's not VIP. It's right there in the name._

The doors open for him, though. Maybe they're fooled by the clothes Addison requested he wear. Maybe she's rubbed off on him after all these years.

Either way, he passes the elaborate coffee and tea setup, which now seems to include actual finger sandwiches; suppressing an eyeroll, he makes his way down the hall.

He knocks on the door to the Captain's room. No response; he's not back yet, but it seemed polite to knock anyway. God forbid the Montgomeries _not_ stand on ceremony, and knowing them they'd just blame Addison for his etiquette failings anyway.

He pushes open the door, headed for the small anteroom where they left their luggage.

Derek has been an observant outsider to this family for more than sixteen years. What's remarkable is how little has changed, over time. He's seen photographs – and more than one portrait they've commissioned, _as one does_ , with Addison and Archer moving from round-faced children to harder-looking teenagers but the Captain and Bizzy looking more or less the same from year to year.

That's the thing with the Montgomery family. There are no surprises.

There are difficulties.

There's a chill in the air.

There's tension.

Toxicity.

A lifetime of hurts large and small, explosions of the kind that are sometimes but silent but leave little bits of damage everywhere.

And there's alcohol.

A lot of alcohol.

Paragraphs of close-lipped, WASPy silence.

But there are no surprises.

It's with silent confidence in this constant predictability that he pushes open the door to the anteroom.

… where he finds Bizzy and Susan wrapped around each other in a passionate embrace, lips locked together in a way that leaves absolutely no question of their intent.

 _Surprise._

* * *

 **To be continued, of course. I love reading what you think, so I hope you'll review! (Also, I have a lot of works in progress, so I count on you guys to let me know which stories need attention!) Thank you for reading!**


	5. Chapter 5

_**I almost forgot about this story. Did you? It's absolutely freezing here, and what's colder than the Montgomery family in Connecticut? So here's the next chapter. It's a long one. Forget the rest of the story? The previous chapter was fairly short if you want to catch up, but quick summary: at prom, Addison finds out the Captain is having emergency surgery. She and Derek fly to Connecticut and the events at prom that shook up Season 2 don't get a chance to happen. We're still at the end of the season, though, on shaky Addek ground of jealousy and half-truths and now we're on the east coast where it all started (and sort of ended?) and Addison's family is in the mix. Last up, in Derek's chapter, he walked in on Susan and Bizzy together. So ... that happened.**_

 _ **Welcome back.**_

* * *

She doesn't touch the sandwich while he's gone.

Somehow, though, it feels like it's touching _her._ It's congealing slowly on the Styrofoam plate, unappetizing enough to turn her stomach without another bite.

She doesn't feel hungry anyway.

She doesn't feel anything – that would be unwise.

No – that's not quite true. She feels the plastic wheel of her blackberry against the pad of her thumb. She feels the ball of one foot against the stiff interior of its shoe, the other foot dangling front her crossed leg. She feels the plastic cushion of the chair underneath her – it was cold when she first sat down. Now it's either warmed up, or she's chilled down to meet it in the middle.

Blending in with the furniture, never such a bad strategy around her family. Better than being called out, anyway.

She sits alone at the round table in the cafeteria, where the room is too big and too humid and too _human_ for her to absorb much. It smells of ripeness, of nothing particularly good.

She stares at the pointed black toe of her shoe, dangling in the air, crosses her legs a second time so she won't have to see it.

..  
..

She was six years old the summer she crept passed the nanny's closed bedroom door, down the back stairs at Bizzy's cottage to see if she could pilfer some of cook's brownies. She heard their voices – not loud, of course, but _serious_ enough that she peeked around the corner. She had an angle into the parlor that way; she and Archie had both used it before. But it wasn't usually as interesting as it was that night: Gert was standing there with no shirt on and for a minute Addison just stared, thinking her nanny looked like the painting of the beautiful lady with the mirror in Bizzy's dressing room at home in Connecticut.

And Bizzy was there too, and the Captain, putting on his belt, and no one was smiling. Gert was apologizing, _I'm sorry,_ she kept saying, sounding like she was going to cry. Addison remembers feeling a little worried for her nanny, knowing how much her mother didn't like crying.

Remembers touching her own cheek for a moment out of sympathy, and finding it flushed, prickly-sensitive from the summer sun. Then Gert was saying, _I'll pack my things and go_ , and Addison was nervous – Gert was nice enough and she and Archie were used to her.

Her mother said, _nonsense_ , and Addison was smart enough even then not to be relieved, to know that Bizzy had something up her sleeve, and sure enough: _nonsense,_ Bizzy said, _when the children – and their father – are so fond of you?_

Addison just stood there racking her brain to figure out if it was her fault. She knew she wasn't supposed to tell her mother about the nurse at the Captain's office, about her swim instructor or the assistant conductor at the Young People's Symphony. Was there something about Gert that she'd forgotten? If so then it would be her fault that Bizzy was mad.

She peeked around the corner a little further and saw her mother nudging something on the floor toward Gert with the pointed black toe of her shoe. _Your chemise, dear_ , that's what Bizzy said, and Gert said, _wait, Bizzy_ , but Addison had to shove herself back against the wall, behind the door, quick quick squeezing her eyes shut so no one would find her. She knew her mother had passed her by the scent of perfume and the gust of cool air.

Her last peek was the Captain and Gert hugging each other and then she tiptoed back up the stairs and crept into her brother's room. _I had a bad dream_ , she told him. It was a lie but it must have been a good one because he believed her. He let her crawl under his blue and white quilt with the anchor appliques and sleep on the other side of his big bed. He believed her lie and that should have made her feel good, right? Not empty, but maybe that was just because she never did find those brownies in the kitchen.

..  
..

A flick of her thumb: one scroll and she's sweeping back through an article she's already read.

She's going to run out of things to read if Derek doesn't hurry and then, well, she doesn't really want to think about _then_.

Her free hand molds around the edge of the table – it's faintly gummy with some substance she doesn't want to think about, but for some reason it seems important to hold on.

Maybe it's that feeling she remembers from this place, from these people. That without something sturdy under her hands, under her feet, she could float away.

She could disappear.

 _How long does it take to get a fucking laptop?_

A thrill of fear runs through her: Did Derek discover something terrible on his errand? Is the Captain dead – and Derek knows – and he's delaying the moment he has to see her again?

Her heart speeds up, thick in her throat.

No.

Her thumb scrolls.

Her free hand grips.

There's no news.

There's no table, no padded chair, no humid-scented cafeteria or slowly congealing sandwich.

Knowing Derek – and oh, she does know him, as much as he'd like to pretend that's not the case – he's distracted by something else entirely. A work email. A goddamn good Samaritan surgery on a patient he discovered in the hallway. That's her husband: always available to help everyone. Everyone except her.

And if that's uncharitable, when he flew across the country with her, rode here to this hospital and stood in front of Bizzy with her … then so be it.

She doesn't have time for charity, not right now.

She's busy waiting for her husband to come back.

She's busy waiting for her father to die.

She's busy waiting.

..

Audible as she stares at her blackberry, his shoes precede him.

Well. They're under him, of course, but their sound precedes any glimpse of him; she selected those shoes and she bought them – Italian leather – and even though he complained at the cost and the fit he didn't hate her enough, apparently, when he packed for Seattle to leave them behind.

He left his wife behind. He left his _life_ behind … but the shoes, he took.

She focuses on her blackberry, scrolling hard, as the footsteps increase in volume, and then stop.

"Addison."

She looks up as if she's just realized he arrived. "Took you long enough," she says.

He doesn't rise – so he's going to be patient with her, he's going to play it like that. The dutiful husband.

"Here," that's all he says, starting to set her laptop down.

" _Derek_."

He pauses. "What?"

"The table is filthy. Do you mind?"

She sees him look at the table, then at her, then at the laptop.

"Not at all." He slings the bag over his shoulder. "Let's go somewhere cleaner, then."

It's her turn to pause. That wasn't what she was expecting.

"Where do you suggest? Back to the Captain's room?" She raises an eyebrow.

"If you'd like."

His neutral tone is grating. She doesn't want him to patient. She doesn't want him to be careful.

There it is again: that seized-up feeling.

Fear.

"Derek – "

He's been studying the strap of her laptop bag; now he looks at her.

"Did you hear anything? He's still in surgery," she adds. A statement, not a question.

"He's still in surgery," Derek repeats.

He's not meeting her eyes, though; there's something he's not telling her.

"Derek, what – "

But before she can continue he's setting her laptop bag down, right where she told him not to – she's snatching it up and he's apologizing, both hands lifted in surrender. He's shushing her, claiming people are _looking_ , she's snapping back at his nerve to scold her and finally she's stalking out of the cafeteria herself, heels sharp on the linoleum floor, glancing only once over her shoulder like Lot's sad-sack wife to see Derek clearing up the remains of their food and drink himself from the little round table, his expression unreadable as he walks it to the trash.

She keeps walking.

She hears him behind her, of course.

His shoes.

She hears her name, and when she doesn't turn around, she feels his hand on her arm, stopping her.

"What?" She whirls around, annoyed, wondering if he'll have that _innocent_ boy scout face on again: hands raised. No crimes here, no sir. "What do you want?"

"I want you to slow down," he says, sounding infuriatingly calm, "and wait for me."

He's still wearing her laptop slung over his shoulder.

"Why?"

If her answer sounds challenging, if it sounds cold, it's not her fault.

She's a Montgomery, here in her home state. Half birthright, half nature.

"Why?" Derek repeats. "I'm your husband."

His tone is perfectly neutral but for some reason there are prickles of heat at her cheekbones, in the corners of her eyes. He takes her arm again, this time drawing her with him around the corner, against the wall where passersby can still pass them by.

"Let go," she says, but he already has, his hand dropping down to his side.

She wasn't going to cry anyway.

..

They compromise on a stiff couch overlooking the sound – _compromise_ , wouldn't that overpaid idiot of a counselor be proud – she unfolds her laptop on the knees of her skirt. He sits there next to her, she can pick up the scent of him that the airplane, the car, the hospital, hasn't been able to take away. But he doesn't try talk to her; he lets her work and for that she's grateful.

"Addison?"

Her head snaps up so quickly she's certain she's pulled something – Susan is framed in the doorway. She's … she's smiling.

"The surgery's finished. He came through."

"Really?" It's an idiotic reaction but she's certainly heard stupider; she pushes to her feet, vaguely aware of Derek grabbing the laptop from her knees before it can hit the ground and setting it on the couch.

She's following Susan and Derek's following _her_ and they're in the Captain's wide-windowed room with late afternoon sun pouring across the floor. His surgeon is there, standing in a puddle of that chilly yellow east coast light she hasn't seen in far too long and Bizzy is listening, adjusting her scarf, Susan standing solicitously by her side.

They'll come back when they can see him. That's what they say.

Addison and Derek, who are usually _they_ , sit on one of the couches to wait, Bizzy and Susan another. Three pairs of crossed legs.

Derek is leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. Taking up space, like he's blocking her from something.

No one speaks until _they_ come in to announce the Captain's in recovery.

Bizzy follows them out, Susan trailing behind, Addison still pinned on the couch so that when her mother returns she's heads taller than her and Addison has to tilt her own head back to see her.

"Can I see him?" Addison asks, hearing a slight tremor in her voice that she hates – half of her expecting to be scolded for asking questions; she's an adult, a surgeon, except that here in Connecticut where time is as frozen as the tips of her fingers she's not exactly sure what she is.

Bizzy looks at her for a moment. "Not if you're going to be this … emotional," she says dismissively.

It's fair, she supposes.

She clears her throat a little, then swallows hard.

"Bizzy." Susan's voice is quiet. "Why don't I take Addison to go see him?"

"Fine," Bizzy says distractedly. "And then call the nurse; I want the bed moved."

"There's no need, Susan." Derek rests a hand on her shoulder. "I can take her."

"It's really – "

"I don't need either of you to take me." Addison pushes her hair behind her ears, pushes to her feet, irritated that Derek's hand on her back is supporting her as she rises from the couch. She looks at Susan, whose expression is nervous; she must be worried about the Captain too. "Just – tell me where to find him."

..

In the doorway, at first, she just stares.

He's almost as white as the sheets under him. For once, he looks every inch his age.

His eyes are closed; the machines assure her he's still alive. Still breathing.

She steps closer. Maybe he won't wake up. She doesn't know what she'd say anyway, except then he exhales a rough sort of sigh and he's eyes open, focusing slowly on her face before she can come up with anything meaningful to say.

"Hi." Her voice rises a little on the end, even with such a short word.

He looks like he's still taking it in, figuring out – he's just had surgery, he's confused, and she tries to make her mouth smile in some … comforting way. Her lips just twist uncomfortably.

He says something, hoarsely, or tries to – her name? His hand twitches on the mattress almost like it's beckoning her. She takes a step closer.

His dry-looking lips part again and that breathy sound escapes, except it's a word.

 _Hi._

That's what he's saying – the same thing she did.

"Hi," she repeats, dumbly, and then she's blinking back the moisture from her eyes while he just looks at her.

"It's, um, it's been a while," she says. She's crying and she hates it, hates that she can't hide it when a tear falls onto the bed, darkening the white sheet. Instinctively she brushes at the spot, this visible evidence of her weakness.

He doesn't respond but his hand does, somehow, it wraps around her own. His is cool and dry, big enough still to engulf hers.

It smells sterile in the recovery room, cold and overly bright. Someone could cut her open in here.

He's still looking at her.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

She's not sure for what.

Getting here too late?

Leaving for six years?

But she can't think about that, can't think about why. He's trying to talk again, and she nods encouragingly. She does what she's supposed to.

"You … and me," her father says slowly, his voice thick and hoarse.

She's not quite sure what he means.

 _You and me both_ , as in a slangy _I'm sorry too?_

Or just _you and me_ , two people, the Captain and Addison and – what? What's the end of that sentence?

His eyes flutter shut.

"Captain."

She touches his face with her free hand. Cool. Dry. Faintly scratchy.

When was the last time she touched him?

"… Dad," she tries when she doesn't respond. The word sounds gruff and unfamiliar, too close syllabically to _dead_ and she winces.

His hand is still folded around hers but it's heavier now. Dead weight. _Dad weight._

 _Dad, wait._

"Addison?"

She turns to see Susan standing in the doorway. Her eyes look sad. "Bizzy would like to see him now, if you're – if you're finished."

"Oh." She looks down at the old man in the bed. The one who was her father, and maybe still is. Or could be. After six years, after the thirty-two that preceded those six, is it possible? "I think he's, um, he's sleeping."

"That's okay." Susan smiles at her. "I'll give you another minute."

She accepts it.

She lets Susan dole out time with her father like she does everything else, smoothly running all their lives.

Her father whose eyes are still closed, his breathing even. He's sleeping. He needs to recover and she shouldn't need to wake him. She doesn't even know why she would.

Tugging at the end of her skirt with her free hand to allow the movement, she bends closer.

"Daddy?"

His eyes flutter. They open for a moment – very, very blue.

"Kitten," he says scratchily. "You're here."

"… Addison," she corrects him. She squeezes his hand, carefully, feeling her lips trembling. "But, yes, I'm here."

His mouth quirks – he's going to say something, she's sure of it, but even though his lips push up into half of a smile before he dozes off again, he says no other words.

He's still sleeping when Susan says her name again, from the doorway, when she nods, detaches her father's hand from hers and lets it curl on the bed in an empty cup shape like its waiting for something, stalks quickly past Susan out the door before everything can catch up with her.

 _Wait._

But she can't wait.

Derek is waiting, just feet outside the little room, he grips her shoulders and asks, _are you okay_? His head is tilted to take her in, he's _looking_ at her – like a husband, like he cares, and she can't have that. _Addie? How was it?_

"Proof of life," she says coolly. "If you can call it that."

"Your father," Derek prompts, looking a little confused.

" … if you can call him that."

..

She's numb from room to room, down the hall, into the waiting car.

They say things like _it's late_ and she closes her eyes out of habit when the car glides soundlessly up the drive to her parents' house.

In college, Savvy used to call her parents' house _home._ She'd say, _I'm going home for Christmas, Addie, are you going home for Christmas?_ Or, _I left my pink sweater at home, the angora one, but I'll get it at Easter._

She experimented, once. Tried to form her lips around the word.

It didn't work.

Her mouth isn't quite working now, either.

Inside the foyer it's dark and chilly; she wraps her arms around herself out of habit. She sidesteps his arm, lets whoever's cooking for Bizzy these days fuss over them and set out plates in the dining room so they can pick over it and have a staring contest.

She catches him looking at her.

She wins.

 _Stop it,_ she wants to say, _you don't get to love me now just because you feel sorry for me._

She loses.

"Try to eat something," he suggests, and his tone is mild but the word _try_ sends her back to the claustrophobic hull of a trailer. Derek likes to _try._

 _We're trying_ , they said, standing in front of the board while she blinked up at him and waited for him to break her heart. _We're trying. We're trying._

"Addison."

"I'm not hungry." She rests her chin in her hand – elbow on the table, her long hair tickling the edge of the table and it's not really comfortable but Bizzy would hate it so much she relishes the feel of the hard wood against bone.

 _We've come so far_ , that's what she said. Right before he asked her to go to the prom with him.

All the way across the country.

And now they've come all the way back.

"Just try," he says and she takes a few bites just so she won't have to hear the word _try_ again.

God, she hates it here.

So much that if he asked her again, about the hotel … she might say yes.

Except she shut that down, in the car from JFK, didn't she?

See, she can hurt herself without Derek's help. Enough that she doesn't need him at all.

..

She keeps the lights low. The less she sees, the better, and she's exhausted even if it's three hours earlier in Seattle. Not like she ever adjusted to Pacific time, not really.

"It's late," he says.

"It's not that late."

Their bags are already in the room, of course. The staff has been moving around discreetly, easy to ignore. Wanting not to be noticed. Maybe Derek should marry one of them.

In ivory silk pajamas that feel cold on her skin, she hangs up the clothes she wore on the plane. The closet is empty; it's artifice only.

Her fingers are cold.

Derek is already in bed. On the side he would have taken at home, when they had a home. Her husband isn't the sort to wait for an invitation.

"Comfortable?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Not really," he says, his tone calm.

 _Then go back to Seattle._

She trains her eyes away from the shape of his chest under the faded blue t-shirt he's wearing. He's always the warmest thing in this house. She used to curl up against him and he'd draw the quilt over them both, a protective tent to help her forget she was here.

 _We can leave,_ that's what he used to say. _We can go whenever you want, Addie, we don't have to stay here. We can go._

But she was stuck.

Does he finally understand, now?

Now that he's stuck too?

..

She stands at the window for a long time, a handful of heavy brocade curtains. She can't see anything: it's dim outside, it's dim inside, she might as well be underwater.

"Come and lie down," Derek says.

Kid gloves again.

"Derek."

"Addie, it's late."

"Stop it. I don't need you – handling me."

"I'm not handling you, Addison."

"Then what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to go to sleep," he says patiently. "I'm tired."

"Well, I'm not tired."

It's a lie.

She's good at those.

Price of admission, in this house.

"You could lie down anyway," Derek suggests neutrally.

"I said I'm not tired."

She does it, though.

She lies down anyway, and she waits for him to fall asleep.

..

At first, when she flicks the kitchen light on, she can't see much at all except a shadowed –

"Susan?" She blinks into the comparative brightness. "I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone was down here."

"It's fine." Susan smiles tiredly at her; she too is wearing pajamas and a robe, leaning against one of the marble counters. "I'm sorry I startled you, Addie. I just … well, I needed a drink." She makes a self-deprecating face.

"You work for my mother. I'd be more concerned if you _didn't_ need a drink," Addison points out.

"And you?" Susan asks, tipping her head a little. "I'm going to guess you came down here for the same reason."

"You guess correctly." Addison stares at the long rows of copper pots. They're from Turkey, the Captain picked them up once for – why does she know this?

"Let me," Susan offers when Addison starts for the bar. "What will you have?"

"Gin and tonic."

"The Captain's drink," Susan says gently, her back turned. "It's all in the pour," she adds when she turns around. "Your father still says you make the best ones, you know."

"Yeah." She looks down at her hands. "Lucky me."

"Addison."

She looks up.

"He's going to make it."

She looks back down at the marble counter, now.

Is the Captain going to make it?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Is she going to cry?

Definitely not. Not negotiable.

"You sound very certain," that's what she says to Susan.

"Well." Susan raises an eyebrow. "Your mother said it first. Bizzy expects him to live. And you know what happens when Bizzy expects something."

True.

Or is it?

For as fearsome as her mother is, in her way, the one enemy she hasn't conquered is the Captain. Bizzy may not be the warmest of mothers – or of strangers, even – but how much can you expect of someone who's been through what the Captain put her through?

And yet – she's in love with him. Addison is as sure of that as she can be of anything. And she doesn't want to know what would happen if he doesn't – if he doesn't make it.

"Addie," Susan says quietly. "Tell me how you're holding up."

"I'm fine."

"And Derek?"

Addison looks over at her, confused. "What about him?"

"I know things were – complicated between the two of you. But he's here, with you now … ."

She shrugs.

"I'm glad the two of you are working it out," Susan says softly.

 _Is that what we're doing?_

"… that you're … talking," Susan says tentatively.

They're not doing much of that.

"I worried about you, when you went to Seattle, not a word … ." Susan takes a sip from her glass. "I'm glad you came back."

 _I didn't._

She tries to force her lips into a smile.

She drains her drink instead.

"Another?" Susan asks, reaching for the empty tumbler.

… she might as well pour a third while she's at it.

They sit in companionable silence – Susan _gets_ it. She knows Bizzy and the Captain. She's on Addison's side, even if Bizzy is the one who pays her generous salary.

There was a time Derek knew her.

There was a time Derek still wanted to know her.

But he never knew her parents.

Not like Susan.

..

"Addie?"

She glances up blearily. Derek is framed in the open kitchen doorway, in the t-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms he wore to bed.

She lifts her half-drunk tumbler in his direction. _Cheers._

"It's after two." He frowns.

"I couldn't sleep." She sounds defensive, more than she should be, maybe.

"It's my fault, Derek," Susan interjects calmly. "Addison and I bumped into each other down here, and it's been a while since she and I have talked. I hope you can forgive me."

Derek just looks at her, not responding.

Confused by his silence, Addison glances at him. "Derek."

He looks at her as if he's just remembered she's there.

"You must both be exhausted. I'll head up now."

"Susan, you don't have to – "

"It's fine, Addie." Susan touches her arm. "Let me know if you need anything. You too, Derek," she adds. "Good night, both of you."

"Good night, Susan. And thank you, for everything," she says, watching her go.

When the door swings shut behind Susan, Addison turns to Derek, annoyed.

"That was rude," she says sharply.

"Was it?" He takes the tumbler from her hand and starts toward the sink.

"Derek." She catches up to him – a little less steady than she realized, okay, but she's fine. "I'm drinking that."

"Were," he corrects. "You were drinking that."

"Excuse me."

"It's late."

"I don't care."

"Apparently not." He sets the glass down and then pushes a hand through his hair. So much for patience.

He's frustrated, but that's Derek. He thinks he's subtle – of course he does – but spend enough time with the man and his tells are more like yells.

"Derek. You were rude to Susan," she says.

He blinks. "She didn't seem offended."

"She's _Susan_ ," Addison reminds him. "She'll well paid not to be offended. You can't exactly have a thin skin and work for Bizzy for all these years."

Derek's looking at her with an expression she can't quite identify.

"What?" she asks, annoyed.

"Nothing." He caps the open bottle of gin. "I'm tired," he says after a moment, "and I'm sure Susan understands that we're all under strain."

She opens her mouth to snap something, that _he's_ under strain, here, really? That's his excuse? But apparently she is tired – more tired than she realized and her body decides to betray her by forcing yawn out of her parted lips when a retort would have been far more welcome.

Derek has the nerve to smile at this.

 _Smile_.

And she's offended, or should be.

But she actually finds the corners of her own mouth quirking.

"It's not funny," she scowls.

"It's not funny," he repeats. "And you're not tired. I get it." He extends a hand to her. "Let's go upstairs, Addie."

Tired … she must be exhausted.

She lets him take her hand and lead her to the staircase, lets him rest a hand on her back all the way up the long flight.

She pauses outside the door to her old bedroom – not that old, she's lived in a handful of bedrooms in this house. Bizzy's staff moved things around at her whim. There's no place permanence in her family. There's not much family, either.

"Addison?"

The door is open, a gaping mouth.

The kind with sharp teeth.

But the hallway's a swamp like she and Archer used to play, jumping from one rug to the next, slipping on the fringes and running to avoid a scolding from the nanny of the moment.

"Addie." He moves her ahead of him through the doorway like he's being polite and she lets him. She moves robotically to the bed, sheds her robe, plays her part.

The sheets feel cold.

Everything is cold here.

..

He's sleeping. She's fairly sure he's sleeping. On his back, hand behind his head; he offered an arm when she curled away but that warm pressure won't do right now. She grips her pillow instead.

Instead of sheep, she counts her years in this house. Growing in heights with notches on the wall like her mother-in-law made for each of her five children. Like Bizzy would never make. She grew here, she's sure of it, but there's no record.

If she listens closely, she can hear the second hand moving on the bedside clock.

She can hear the time she's losing.

She hears her name, quietly, in the dark.

The mattress shifts a little as he moves.

"I hate sleeping here," she admits.

He sighs, propping up on an elbow; she didn't want that – he can see her now, even if it's mostly dark, so she presses her face into the pillow.

"I know you do," he says quietly.

She waits for him to remind her that he wanted to stay in a hotel, that this is her fault, but it doesn't come. Then she waits at least for the sound of his lying back down, making it safe for her to take her face out of her pillow, but she doesn't hear that either.

She hears only a faint rustling, which precedes the feel of his hand on her head, just resting for a moment – like a benediction – and then starting to stroke her hair.

She could tell him to stop.

He's the tired one, he's the one who wanted to sleep, he shouldn't be awake propped up on one arm stroking her hair when she's not even tired, when she doesn't care about sleep.

It's soothing, is the thing.

It shouldn't be and she doesn't want it to be; what she wants is the rest of her gin and tonic.

What she wants is to be anywhere but here.

If she could crawl out of this bed, this life, this _skin_ … but she can't.

All she can do is close her eyes.

And hold on.

..

She's dreaming.

It's the kind of dream where you know it's a dream, so it's rueful – regretful, even. The dream is soft and shapeless; it smells of salt and sounds like the slap of sea against a sailboat. Wind whistles through her sleep. She sees something crisp and white, hears a voice. It's low-pitched and casual, no care in the world.

Whose voice is it? Unclear. All she knows is that she needs to follow the voice. It's only a foot away.

Two feet.

Half a dozen.

The voice moves so fast and she's so slow, her steps small and weak like a toddler's. She can almost make out the back of a skull, the shape of a man, can almost say _wait_ except she can't. Her mouth strains around the word. It's the hardest syllable in the word, it catches in her throat and chokes her.

Wait. But she can't say it.

Wait.

 _Wait._

"Addison."

She blinks awake to her husband's face – he's leaning over her and he's all she can see: sleep-tousled, eyes bleary with concern. It's still so dark in the trailer.

"Derek?"

"You were dreaming." His voice is scratchy like it always is first thing. A little rough.

"… I know." That's all she can think to say, still not quite awake.

His palm against her cheek feels cool; she must be warm. "It was just a dream," he says, but that doesn't make any sense.

It wasn't a bad dream.

Not a nightmare.

Was it?

His fingers are in her hair now, moving strands of it away from her face. They're damp – his fingers are, it must be, because there's no reason her cheeks would be and that's what he's touching.

She blinks and she can see a little more, a little beyond him to the curved sides of the trailer.

But it's not the trailer at all.

Her location comes back to her with a dull thump. The darkness makes sense now, the thick heavy curtains blocking out the light, and she's in her parents' house in Connecticut and nausea curdles her stomach.

She's going to be sick.

She pushes at his hands, needing air; he's pulling her up to sit, replacing the pillows behind her so that he's what's holding her up.

 _No_ , but she doesn't say it because her lips are dried together, sewn shut like they've always felt in this room, this house.

He's talking quietly to her – she can't quite make out the words but his hand is in her hair, holding her head back against his shoulder, her forehead touching his neck and the ache in her stomach is starting to recede.

She pulls back a little to see his face; he smiles at her but his eyes are sad. Empathetic, maybe, but it looks too much like pity for her liking.

"I'm fine," she says.

"I know." He moves some of her hair back.

Her neck is stiff – she must have slept on it strangely. "I should get up."

"It's still early," he says. She sees him glance at the clock on the bedside table. "Why don't you try to go back to sleep?"

"I'm not tired."

She feels him sigh underneath her and she doesn't care. She won't care. She doesn't like the way he's looking at her with those sadly focused eyes. She's not a pet or a project and she doesn't need this hollow feeling inside her. So. If it's too early to drink – publicly anyway – then she'll have to be creative and when he cups her face with his hand again, saying something in that _concerned_ way that she can't quite understand, she covers the distance between them instead of trying to hear him, kisses him instead of trying to answer.

He kisses her back at first, letting her drag her fingers along his scalp and then he's holding her wrists gently, detaching her hands from around his neck.

"Addison, wait."

"Now what?" she asks, annoyed.

"Just … wait a second."

She does – she doesn't really have a choice – but he's tilting his head again like he's trying to see her face and she pulls her hands easily from his loose grasp.

"Addie, would you just wait – "

She puts her hands up to his face now, holding it and effectively cutting him off. "Derek … there's no time like the present."

He smiles a little – it makes him look less sad, which is good, she doesn't want those _sad_ eyes on her. What she wants is distraction and if he's so interested in performing his husbandly duties, fulfilling his obligations, then he should want to help.

Shouldn't he?

He's resistant though, and she sighs against his mouth when he doesn't kiss her back.

 _Please_ , she says.

She has manners.

 _Derek … please._

He pauses for just a moment before he kisses her back, this time. His hands slide down to her waist, but they feel almost – soothing, not the way she wants it.

Not right now.

She shoves her own hands under the warm fabric of his shirt – she wants to feel his skin but some spiky part of her wants even more to mark it and when her nails dig in she can tell from the way he freezes that it hurt.

"Hey." He grabs her wrist to stop her, tightly enough this time to make her gasp and then she swallows his apology with her lips so he won't see her smile.

He's trying to slow her down – not trying that hard, but a good wife would probably stop now. A better wife would probably ask. She's neither so she doesn't slow down and she doesn't stop and she can't let him answer. He seems to give up pushing her off, maybe recognizing how much she needs this and maybe just plain uninterested in fighting it.

Understandable, really. Fighting it would take commitment, it would take work. He's Derek still, he'll take the easier route even if the easier route is letting his wife push him flat onto the bed, pull hard on his hair, their teeth clashing until her lips taste metallic and they're both out of breath and then he's pushing her back again.

"Addison, can you just take it easy – "

No, she can't.

She can't because her stomach is clenching unpleasantly, her eyes are stinging, and she's not going to be able to focus, not going to be able to do anything if he won't just –

He does.

He responds, he stops pushing her away. She doesn't have to beg, at least, though her body still begs a little. Beckons him and begs for more. She pulls at him, wanting to feel all of his weight on top of her now. She wants enough discomfort not to feel anything at all.

She wants –

The door bangs open and they jump apart like guilty teenagers, Derek cursing under his breath as she tries to catch hers.

"So sorry to interrupt," Bizzy says, her tone coolly casual like she's walked in on a junior league meeting.

"You could have knocked," Addison mutters, flushing deeply as she wipes one hand across her mouth, the other holding the sheet to her chin.

Her mother raises an eyebrow. "Don't be silly, Addison, of course I knocked. … I can't imagine why you didn't hear," she adds drily.

Addison sighs. "Did you want something, Bizzy?"

Her mother takes a moment to study her, looking distinctly unimpressed. "The Captain's taken a turn for the worse," she says simply. "I'm leaving for the hospital."

Addison realizes her mother is fully dressed – not that that's surprising or indicative of anything, not when her mother is Bizzy, but even her scarf is perfectly aligned on her shoulders.

"Wait. A turn for – " Addison struggles to sit up, pulling the sheet with her. "What does that mean?"

"You're the doctor, dear." Bizzy adjusts her scarf. "But as a … _layperson …_ I'll suggest that you wrap up whatever this is and join us at the hospital."

"Bizzy!"

Her mother winces just slightly like her raised voice is something unpleasant that needs to be cleansed from the house. She pushes on anyway.

"He's alive, though? He's still alive?" She hears her voice running high.

Bizzy actually looks irritated now, if you know what to look for. "He's alive."

"He's alive," Addison repeats when her mother has closed the door behind her, turning back to Derek, who's mostly under the quilt looking at her with concern. "But it's – she said a turn for the worse."

In her mind are numbers, marching along in stiff black and white.

Eighty percent of patients with the Captain's diagnosis die before surgery.

Fifty percent of those who make it through surgery … make it at all.

Shifting numbers, shifting prognoses, but he's alive.

He's still alive.

"Addison."

"No, we have to go." She grabs his face when he doesn't respond immediately. "Derek, we have to go. We have to go now."

She dresses numbly, fear constricting her throat, Derek keeping pace with her, zipping her skirt for her when her fingers tremble too much to line up the edges. He's holding her elbow when she stumbles on the stairs, keeping her upright.

The car is waiting for them: sleep, black, and empty. His hand drifts over the console once, and then twice, but she can't reach for it.

That would mean – and she's not ready for that, so it can't mean that.

Her fingers do brush his once, just once, when he's opening the back door for her before the driver can – god, she loves and hates him for that in equal measure, it's so _him_ but then she doesn't have time to think anything else. To feel anything else.

They're in the hospital, two pairs of shoes clacking over the linoleum floor, and Susan is meeting them just inside the thick glass doors of the VIP wing, her eyes glistening with tears.

"No," Addison whispers automatically; she's grabbing for Derek's arm but it's already around her, it's keeping her upright.

"I'm so sorry." Susan looks pained. "I'm sorry, Addison."

* * *

 _ **More to come - it's Derek's chapter next. There's a whole outline I rediscovered, so this is back in the queue. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll review to fuel the heat on this freezing cold Monday.**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**So, this happened. I'm getting back in the swing of things and I'm as surprised this was next in the queue as you might be. If you don't remember or haven't read it, this is the one where Addison gets a call about the Captain during the prom, and she and Derek fly to Connecticut together. No exam room sex, no post exam room sex Mark. Just two Shepherds in that end of season 2 very marital but very fraught position. Plus the Montgomery family. Plus a cliffhanger from the last chapter.**_

 _ **I hope you'll give it a try.**_

* * *

"I'm so sorry to hear it." The familiar voice is deep and rumbling – sympathetic, but Derek can't help but feel somewhat like a failure to deliver bad news to his boss. Old habits die hard, apparently. Richard clears his throat. "How's Addie handling everything?"

 _Don't ask._

But he already did.

Derek glances toward the ladies' room.

"She's, uh, she's handling it."

He hangs up after sufficient condolences, having secured additional time off for both of them, having fulfilled his marital duty of _you make the calls, Derek,_ and then he's back to his post outside the closed door.

Sighing, he raps on the wood with a closed fist. Not as hard as he could, not as softly either. It's not his first try.

"Addison?"

He keeps his voice low enough not to be accused of _making a scene_ , but she doesn't answer.

 _She's handling it, all right._

"How long has she been in there now?"

He turns to see Susan approaching. Her face is drawn, her eyes visibly red, but Derek can't quite feel sorry for her at the moment.

 _Forever._ She's been in there forever.

Lifetimes – the Captain's, anyway.

A lifetime since he could look Susan in the eye.

In which his mother-in-law's secretary went from Bizzy wrangler and Addison confidante to – what? Erstwhile lover? He doesn't want to know. He already knows more than he should. He brushed her off when he followed her from the Captain's room – _Derek, I'm sorry, you have to understand, this isn't what you think_.

He couldn't brush off her next apology, when she delivered the news about the Captain.

But he doesn't have to speak to her now.

He has nothing to say to her now.

When he doesn't respond, Susan reaches for the door herself; Derek, without realizing quite what he's doing, steps between her body and the handle.

If he can do nothing else, he can grant Addison her privacy.

 _She doesn't know what you are_ , he doesn't say to Susan.

Susan glances at him.

He looks back this time, looking for – he's not sure. Regret? Guilt? Embarrassment, for what he saw?

"I can go in and speak to Addison for you," Susan offers calmly.

Her tone is polite.

Giving.

What is it Bizzy would call her? The _help?_

… of course, all of that was a lie.

Why does it even surprise him, after all these years, that anything in this family is a lie?

"I think you've done enough," Derek says quietly.

Susan blinks. "Everyone here is grieving, Derek."

"Really." He meets her eyes, his voice level. "Everyone," he repeats; she won't miss his inflection.

There's an awkward silence, one he invited, and he accepts it. Neither of them makes any direct reference to what he saw, earlier.

To what she said.

To any of it.

"Well." Susan adjusts the collar of her blouse – it's a Bizzy-ish sort of gesture that might have amused him under different circumstances, but not now. "If you have everything under control, here, Derek … "

"I do."

He's lying, of course, but the rest of the family is too, so who's counting?

..

He waits until he's alone again to push open the door.

He's not really sure what he'll find, although really he shouldn't be surprised: Addison's modus operandi is to fall apart at the wrong times and hold it together when she shouldn't. The Captain is dead and the Captain's daughter is standing in front of the mirrors, not a hair askew with both hands gripping the counter. He can see the white around her nail beds from feet away, but she turns a tearless face to his.

"This is the ladies' room, Derek."

"Yes. I noticed the sign."

She smirks. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

 _Nothing that would help._

"I wanted to see how you were doing," he says.

"How I'm doing." She blinks. "I'm fine, Derek."

 _How else would I be?_ She doesn't have to say the words.

His mouth feels clumsy, his steps oversized. Too much time with the Montgomeries will do that.

 _I'm fine, Derek._

It's not like he expected anything else.

It's not like he expected her to make this easy.

When in doubt, numbers: "You've been in here for – " He checks his watch, then stops.

For a moment, they just look at each other, in the glass.

Her posture is so stiff it makes his own shoulders feel tight. He's not stupid enough to step any closer, to suggest with words or gesture that perhaps she isn't as _fine_ as she claims.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asks finally.

"No, thank you," she says politely.

He hasn't touched her, nor would he dare. She's still gripping the counter and he can see the rigidity in her muscles through the thin fabric of her blouse.

Years ago, he recalls overhearing one of his sisters marvel, to another, at the impressive tone in Addison's arms. _It's surgery,_ Nancy suggested, and Derek didn't contradict them: _actually it's emotional repression with a side of childhood trauma._

All he does is nod.

He glances back at the door to the ladies' room. If she needs to be in here right now, he can leave her in here.

"Archer," Addison says to the mirror, before he can leave. Her reflected face betrays no emotion.

 _Archer._ Presumably, Susan alerted to him to the Captain's surgery. It's the kind of thing she would do, and he recalls assuring Addison of that fact the previous day. But that was different. That was before.

"I can call him," Derek offers quietly, "if you'd like. I'll add him to the list."

Addison finally releases the counter and removes an invisible piece of lint from the shoulder of her blouse with one hand. In profile, the lines of her face are tight.

"I doubt he'd take your call," she says.

Fair enough.

"I should call him." She's still studying her own reflection. He's fairly certain she hasn't blinked in a while.

"Addison – "

"Susan can call him, but it's probably better he hears it from me."

He's not sure he's included in this conversation in any real way; all her words are still directed to the mirror. But just as surely as he can see her face in the glass, she has a view of him a few feet back, watching her.

"The other calls … ." Her voice trails off; she's still facing the mirror.

"I'll make them." He studies her reflection. "I'll call Archer," he adds.

Her gaze drops to her hands, briefly. "If you'd like," she says after a moment.

"I spoke to Richard," he says after a moment. If nothing else, he can fall back on marital logistics. She asked him to call, after all. Just like she used to.

 _Did you call the gardener to reschedule?_

 _Did you call the restaurant to postpone the reservation?_

He studies what he can see of her: the taut muscles of her back, the glass reflection of her face.

He, too, lost a father.

But he's spent more than a third of his life with Addison – closer to half – more than long enough to know that was completely, inescapably different.

"Addie … ."

"Thank you for calling him," she says without expression.

He nods. "He knows we'll be staying longer now and he, uh, he sends you his – "

The door swings open before he can finish.

"Oh! Sorry, I – " A flustered woman looks from Derek to Addison and back again, confused. "I thought this was the ladies' room."

"It's all right," Addison says coolly, finally moving from her post at the mirror and nodding in a regal way that reminds him inescapably of her mother. It's Bizzy to a T: grandly accept an apology that wasn't really offered when you, in fact, are in the wrong.

Addison sweeps past him, just the tip of her frosty shoulder brushing his and radiating as surely as her Bizzy-esque response:

 _Danger._

..  
..

The first time he watched Addison fall apart in that one way he would later learn was stamped _Montgomery_ , the way her parents could turn her into a hollow shell of her vibrant self, he was a medical student who still thought he could save every patient.

He had _gifted hands_ /he had _great promise_ /he had a _bright future_.

And he had no idea what to do.

Of course, he didn't actually see whatever it was.

He just saw the aftermath.

She appeared at the door of his student apartment without announcement or invitation, without a coat in early December with snow crystallized in her long hair.

 _Addie, what's wrong?_

And she just stared at him with huge, empty eyes.

 _Addie?_

Nothing.

 _Addison?_

 _Can I sleep here?_ she asked finally.

That's all she said.

 _Of course_ , he said, but she wasn't really listening to the answer and he didn't fully understand the question. _Come in._

She came in.

She shivered in a pair of his flannel pajamas that dwarfed her smaller body.

She didn't say anything after that, not for a while, and he was impotent in all the ways that mattered. The diagnostic skills he was so proud of in his clinicals had no value here. As for treatment? A half drunk bottle of liquor perched on the cracked mantle in dorm room tradition – she just shook her head – or maybe she didn't and she was just shaking from cold.

He couldn't do anything.

He would have done anything.

He did next to nothing.

He just held her close under the faded quilt he'd slept with since junior high school, rubbing circles over for what felt like hours. His palm would tingle for most of the next day from the rough-smooth flannel under his skin.

 _What happened,_ he asked her that night, only once.

She just shook her head a little against his chest. _Nothing,_ she said.

Nothing at all.

..  
..

"The Captain's dead."

Derek blinks. His brother-in-law's tone is so casual it's almost jovial. "Did you already – "

"Nah, no one told me. I just figured. The stats weren't really in the old man's favor, were they?"

"No … they weren't." Derek moves a few feet down the hallway.

"How's Addie?" Archer asks and it's the first time sounds almost recognizably human.

 _Low standards in this family._

"She's, uh, she's managing," he says finally, some last vestige of loyalty keeping him from suggesting otherwise.

"Drinking, I hope," Archer says.

Derek blinks. "We're still at the hospital."

"Alcohol is medicinal." His brother-in-law almost sounds amused now. "Derek, this is no time to get stingy on her. She's lost a parent."

His mind swims with responses he wishes he could give. Is Archer really advising him how to handle Addison?

His own voice comes back to him: _I'm not handling you, Addison._

Well.

It's not like he's the only one glossing over the truth.

..

He's off the phone with Archer when the rest of it hits him.

 _She's lost a parent._

Has she?

The lump of fear and worry that have coalesced since he heard the news – maybe even before – because it's not about Addison losing her father.

It's about never finding him in the first place.

..

 _You make the calls, Derek._

There's a spiderweb of marriage with _for better or for worse, in sickness and in health_ and _what can I do, tell me what I can do for you_ all tangled up with the same eight-legged predator.

 _Just … you tell people. I don't want to talk to anyone._

That last part, of course, was clear.

This is what _anything_ looks like.

Like a phone in his hand.

Like a list of calls to make.

Like polite phrasing:

 _The Captain is gone._

All those tactful phrasings:

 _The Captain is gone_.

But to be gone, wouldn't he have to be there in the first place?

Weiss is next: he curses under his breath at the news. "Was he sick?"

 _Depends on your definition._

He gives the briefest version of the Captain's surgery.

"I'm sorry, man." He pauses. "How's Addison doing?"

Was it only six months ago that Weiss flew to Seattle, after supporting his own wife through the loss of a parent?

 _Our friends are going through hell in there and we can't even act like we like each other long enough to help them!_

He considers how to respond.

"She's probably taking it pretty hard, huh," Weiss says before he has to respond. Derek recalls he has some sense of the difficulty of their relationship – nothing in detail, nothing like what being _DerekAndAddison_ revealed to him – but something nonetheless. He's been around a long time.

Derek swallows. "Yeah, you could say that."

The rest of the conversation is brief – platitudes and assurance he'll talk to Savvy, promises to keep him informed of arrangements, offers to do anything to help.

"Hey, Derek?"

He pauses, halfway to hanging up.

"You're there," Weiss says quietly.

Derek waits, and then realizes his old friend doesn't mean _there_ as in still on the line, but _there_ as in Connecticut.

He's there.

 _You don't have to come with me,_ Addison said, more than once, as she packed tensely for the flight.

He has a brief sense memory of how small she felt under his hands when she slept against him on the plane. The shudder that ran through her when Susan delivered the news.

"Yeah." He exhales heavily into the phone. "She's my wife."

..

"Is it my birthday?" Nancy asks. Her tone is teasing until he tells her and then her voice is thick with tears. He used to like Nancy more than he disliked her because Nancy loved Addison. But that was before.

They haven't figured out the _after_ yet.

"At least she got to see him first," Nancy says, her voice shaking a little. "That's good."

He knows she's thinking of their own father. Of her own lost chances.

 _Was it good in this case, though? Was it good for Addison?_

His wife is pushing forty is he's not aware of any time to point to where talking to the Captain was a net positive. Neutral, he learned, was really too much to hope for.

"Tell Addie I love her," Nancy directs before he ends the call and it's an uncomfortable reminder that he can't remember the last time he said those words himself.

..

So it goes: Derek with his phone, Addison alternately pacing the linoleum and speaking in hushed voices to one hospital staffer or another: the Captain's doctor. The PR representative – some visitors' services high up in a scarf he knows only from his marriage is expensive, probably fretting that losing such a high net patient so quickly will reverberate poorly in the Junior League.

Since learning of the Captain's passing, he's been keeping a close eye on his wife. Just an eye: she's all but emitting radar beams of _don't touch, keep your distance, stay back._

He's known her a long time and he knows when to push it and when not to; when listening to her is what she needs and when it's the exact opposite.

He knows a lot of things.

At least he used to.

-..

"How's Addie taking it, Derek? It's been a while, hasn't it, since she'd seen her dad?"

Her _dad._ The word sounds so natural coming from his mother's mouth, but that's not what the Captain was. Derek's father, he was a _dad_.

He's still not sure, frankly, just what the Captain was.

"Yes." He clears his throat.

"Poor thing."

His mother is quiet for long moments.

She's seen more than many. She wasn't there, six years ago – but she was there other times.

"I'd like to call her," his mother says. "But I don't want to intrude."

He considers the possibility. All these years with his wife convinced his mother hates her and here she's already offered to do more for her than Addison's own mother has.

"She's not really taking calls yet, Mom, but it's nice of you to offer."

"What can we do then, honey? Will there be a mass? Or some kind of – I don't remember what church they go to."

… they don't, with the exception of Christmas.

He assures her he'll let her know the arrangements when they're made.

"I'm sorry, honey," his mother says one more time before they end the call.

Yeah.

He's sorry too.

..

Bizzy reappears finally, holding solemn court in a tastefully appointed meeting room of sorts. A _family room_ , they'd call it in the hospitals where he's worked, but that word sticks in the throat in this place.

With these people.

Addison is silent, twisting her rings around her finger and avoiding eye contact. Not for the first time, he notices she looks smaller around her mother. She gets that anxious-to-please air so palpable it's equal parts depressing and infuriating.

(He tried calling her on it once, years ago; it went poorly. _You never seem to mind when it's you I'm trying to please,_ she snapped, _I'm sorry you're not the center of the universe for once!_ It was so stunningly unfair there was nothing to say in return. So he said nothing, he walked away and poured himself a drink and she caught up to him in floods of tears, clinging and apologizing. _I didn't mean it, honey, I didn't mean it._ He comforted her through half gritted teeth without saying it out loud: _We both know you always mean it. You mean everything._ )

Bizzy, for her part, is standing ramrod straight – Montgomery posture is no coincidence – her jaw tight but her appearance otherwise unruffled. Susan stands sentry by her side.

Addison is skittish, he can tell, looking from her mother to Susan before she speaks.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers finally. The mask of his wife's face slips a little, lips trembling, and he can see her eyes are shining with unshed tears.

"Thank you, dear," Bizzy says.

Addison is still fiddling with her rings, fingers shaking, looking down at the ground now.

Tentatively, Derek rests a hand on her arm; she sidesteps it almost imperceptibly.

He watches as Susan glances at Bizzy and then at Derek; he forces his face to remain impassive.

 _Even if their marriage means nothing to the Captain, it does mean something to Bizzy._

Nothing to the Captain.

Something to Bizzy.

What was it he saw in the Captain's hospital room closet, then?

 _Montgomeries look the other way,_ that cringing motto he knows all too well from his wife. He's judged it, hated it, lived under it, thought at one time he could deprogram her out of it … and failed.

Except in the thick of things, when he was the one who walked in, what did he do?

 _Nothing_.

Is he one of them, standing there with staff and handlers?

"Arrangements will need to be made," Bizzy announces as if she's planning a fundraiser. "The Captain made his wishes clear. Susan?"

"Of course, Bizzy."

"We're staying in town," Addison blurts, and Bizzy turns to her as if she's forgotten she was there. "Whatever you need," she says.

Bizzy just nods, then turns back to Susan. "I understand my son is en route."

"Derek spoke with him," Addison says quickly. "He's coming, tonight. He said he was coming, didn't he?"

After all the silence earlier her voice is a little throaty with disuse; it makes the desperation in her tone more obvious.

"He's coming."

Later Derek will find fault in himself for what comes next. By his side Addison is practically vibrating with tension; she hasn't exactly been a pillar of warmth on this trip but he feels he needs to do something and reaches out, however unwisely, to touch her shoulder.

She shifts slightly and he ends up resting his hand on the base of her neck. He applies a little pressure when she doesn't protest; it's a spot that used to give her some relief. Marginally – almost imperceptibly – he can feel her calming.

"Really, Addison," Bizzy says coldly, and her muscles jump under his hand.

He looks up, surprised and a little irritated.

And then he realizes.

The motions of his hand have pulled at the collar of her blouse, apparently, revealing a faint but recognizable mark at the side of her neck.

He winces a little, remembering – she was forceful in bed at dawn, before they were interrupted, aggressive, and he recognized her desperation – _please, Derek, I don't want to talk about it, I just need something, I need you_ – and reciprocated.

She left the mark of her nails on his skin and if he hadn't been distracted earlier, if she hadn't, maybe they would have noticed –

But they didn't.

And now Bizzy is looking haughtily at her, judgment in her eyes.

"It's nothing." Addison pulls at the collar of her blouse, and Derek's hand falls away.

"With luck, it will fade before we bury him," Bizzy says coolly, "and if not … perhaps a different neckline?"

Addison's cheeks are flushed, but she doesn't respond.

Bizzy is studying her now and Derek has the uncomfortable thought that she's setting her sights.

 _Danger._

"I would hate for your father's death to interfere with your … enjoyment."

The air between them crackles with tension.

Addison's eyes flash. "Did you forget who you married?" she asks, glaring at her mother. "I think he of all people would understand."

There's an audible crack of tension now –

No, that's not what it was at all.

Derek moves between them too late with some nonsense syllable – _hey_ or _whoa_ , he hears little but his own beating heart in that moment – and pulls Addison back, away from her mother.

One long split second and Susan is there too, taking Bizzy's arm and looking at Derek. "I'm sorry," she mouths, and he has to turn away before he says something he'll regret.

He focuses on Addison; she's breathing harshly next to him with her hand clasped to her cheek, her head turned away, long hair striping over her blouse. He's still gripping her upper arms, keeping her body behind his.

 _This is real._

 _This is happening._

He forces his own breathing under control, wraps an arm around his wife's rigid back and leads them both from the room.

He glances back only once and Bizzy and Susan are standing in the corner of the room, Susan pouring what looks like a cup of tea for her employer.

Or whatever Bizzy is.

Both women look unbothered and for a moment hatred surges in him and he's not sure which of them he'd like to slap more.

..

"Let me see," he says when they're alone. He's backed her up to the sink in a decent sized single-person bathroom. It's _VIP_ , so the linoleum is faux marble instead. The trimmings are pink.

She's still holding her cheek tightly, her eyes huge and blank.

"Addie … "

Finally he pries her hand off himself. She's just standing there, white and silent, as he tips her face toward the light. There's a solid red mark on her fair skin; apparently Bizzy put her back into it.

She's tearless, her jaw tense, but he catches her glancing at him in the mirror. His fingers are still resting under her chin, and something makes him smile at her.

Just a little.

She doesn't return the smile … but she doesn't look away.

 _That's something._

He moves his hand carefully, brushes a strand of hair away from her face. "Are you all right?"

She doesn't respond.

Fair enough – he supposes he should just be glad the ring didn't get her.

History has told him he needs to be very careful, right now.

Anything he says will be used against him, and sure enough –

"Derek – she's upset," Addison says quietly.

"She's upset," he acknowledges after a moment. "But she shouldn't have done that."

Addison doesn't say anything. She's looking past him now, he's not sure her focus.

He just knows it's not him.

..

The house feels much the way they left it that morning.

Big.

Cold.

Impersonal.

Addison disappears up the stairs with a request that Derek bring her a drink.

"I have it." Susan smiles warmly at both of them and Derek swallows bile. He reminds himself to say nothing.

Not that there's anything to say.

He waits at the foot of the stairs obediently anyway but when Susan returns, she holds the drink slightly out of his reach.

Confused, he reaches for it again.

"Wait," she says.

He lifts his eyebrows.

"I know you mean well, Derek, but … you don't know this family like I do."

"What family?" Derek stares at her, this woman who seemed so unassuming. This woman his wife trusted. "Addison and I, we're a family," he continues. "You … people? I don't know what you are. I know the things you do. I know the damage you cause. I don't know what you are. But you're not a family."

He pauses for breath.

 _What do you know? There was something to say._

What would his mother think of him berating Susan like this, his rudeness and lack of tact in the face of a death in the family?

She wouldn't understand.

Everything is different here.

"This is ... difficult for Bizzy," Susan says quietly.

"Why, is her hand sore?" Derek asks, looking right at her.

He's not sorry.

Susan doesn't flinch. "No, but she did just lose her husband."

"Which would be a little more tragic if she wasn't screwing her secretary."

Now Susan's face flushes visibly. "I know you're upset, Derek, I understand that, but you don't know everything that's – you don't know the whole story. You don't know everything."

"That's all right. You can spare me the details."

She turns, but then turns back, still holding Addison's drink. "We never meant to hurt anyone, Derek."

 _They never do._

"Bizzy is devoted to her family. She's always put them first."

Really? That's the first he's heard of it if so.

"But she's human, Derek. She's a person, and we just – "

"I don't need to hear this," he cuts in.

Slowly, Susan nods. "You should just know – she was protecting them. The children, I mean. She didn't want them to know," she says quietly.

 _The children._

Addison and Archer, straddling both sides of forty years old.

"You didn't tell Addie," Susan prompts.

 _Don't call her that,_ he wants to snap. _You were never her friend. You're as bad as they are._

"No, I didn't." He's resting a hand on the balustrade; he feels a strong urge to keep his fingers busy right now.

"I appreciate it," Susan says after a moment.

"I didn't do it for you," he says coldly.

"I know that." Susan lowers her eyes.

Briefly, Derek closes his.

"Derek ... he knew," Susan says quietly. "The Captain knew, and he understood. It was between them."

Which could make a strange sort of sense if not for everything he knows about Addison's childhood.

All those years of affairs and secrets and – _I used to have to lie for him,_ Addison told him in tears once, after some night out with Archer had gone poorly, _I'd tell my mother he took me for ice cream or to the club and I was afraid, Derek, I was always afraid she'd find out because I know she's not the – nicest mother, I do know that, but it would have killed her. She loves him, she really does._

"Why?" he asks Susan finally. "Why – do all this? Why pretend? Why stay with him?"

Susan studies her hands for a moment, then looks up at him, finally handing over the drink. "Bizzy cares deeply for the Captain."

" _Cared_ ," Derek says. He uses the past tense on purpose, to wound. He's been grieving since he was thirteen; he's expert enough to use it as a weapon.

Finally, it's come in handy.

..

 _You're there,_ that's what Weiss said on the phone.

He didn't need to be.

He could have stayed a continent away.

Twice, he could have stayed.

Twice, she offered just that.

Once, at the hospital, when she got the call.

Once again, in the trailer, when she prepared for travel.

The last time he crossed the country, before this, in the other direction … it was without her. He could have stayed – that time, she begged him to do just that.

But he left.

And she followed.

A continent away, a different woman captured his attention on the dance floor of Richard's ridiculous hospital prom. There was electricity in the air that night, something weighty.

Maybe it's still there, in that room. He wouldn't know. When Addison left, he left.

His lot was cast with hers so long ago.

And now he's here.

..

He expects an irritable comment when he finally opens the door to Addison's old bedroom – _what took you so long?_ – but she doesn't even seem to notice his entrance. She's standing at the window, her back to him, long hair mussed a little as if her hands have been in it.

"Addison."

She turns at his voice and he hands her the drink. She glances at it, as if she's not sure what to do, then finally takes a sip.

His palm is left damp; the glass was sweating during his uncomfortable conversation with Susan and condensation dries cold on his skin now.

She takes another sip and offers him the glass; automatically, he takes it from her and takes his own sip before handing it back.

 _What mine is yours and what's yours is mine._

"It's still today," she says.

She's looking down while she speaks, smoothing her skirt with her free hand. It's the outfit she put on this morning – he zipped that skirt for her, after they were interrupted – and then she seems to remember he's there.

"It's the same day." Her tone is rote but the words still somehow express surprise. "With everything that's happened, it's still the same day."

He just nods.

"I'm wearing the same clothes … and it's the same day." She looks down at her outfit again, and he sees one of her feet flex against the rug. There's an indrawn breath that tells him she's winding herself up; he just listens and predictably, her speech speeds up.

"Patients' families, have you ever noticed, they keep the same clothes on. They'd rather not change. It doesn't matter what's on them – blood, fluids – they'd still rather keep the same clothes on. They don't want to change out of them. They don't want clean clothes. Maybe they don't want to acknowledge time has passed. Or is it more – forensic? Preserving evidence?"

He's somewhat unnerved by her soliloquy. Her face has remained expressionless throughout. A stressed Addison will ramble, yes, but the it's eerily performative stance and tone that set this apart.

"They don't want to change their clothes," she continues. "It doesn't matter how marked they are. No matter what it is. I remember the husband of a patient with a late placental abruption, and by the time they got to the hospital the baby was gone, the wife had bled out, and his shirt was just coated in – "

"Addison."

She stops when he speaks her name and looks once again as if she's just noticed him standing there.

"You can change your clothes," he says quietly; he keeps talking when she doesn't protest. "Go take a shower," he suggests. "And change your clothes."

 _You'll feel better_. Not that he could say that out loud.

She glances at her wristwatch. "Archer …"

"His flight won't land for another hour."

Slowly, mechanically, she nods. He watches the morning in reverse; her fingers shake as she fumbles with the zipper of her skirt – her sure, skilled fingers – but when she catches him looking she decamps to the attached bathroom before he can offer to help.

..

Alone in the room, he lowers himself to the edge of the bed – even the mattress feels stiff, unforgiving.

That's the question in this house, though.

Always.

Who can forgive whom? Who deserves to be forgiven?

He can't unsee what he walked in on in the Captain's hospital room. _Bizzy and Susan._

It changes the calculus. Doesn't it?

The Captain's decades of peccadillos, so seemingly unforgivable. Now what?

The house is shrouded in secrets, buried deep.

Floors away, his father-in-law's body will be shrouded, literally. Buried.

And he's the one, now, keeping a secret from his wife.

..

The Addison who returns to the bedroom is stripped of most everything that was covering her. Wrapped only a towel that skims the top of her thighs, she pauses in front of him. He stood up automatically at her approach and now they are eye to eye – he's taller, with her in bare feet – steam still rising from her bare skin.

The temperature of her showers tends to match the need to scald off her day.

When she looks at him, her skin free of makeup now, her face is whiter and the stain on her cheek redder than it was before.

Without speaking, and very gently, he lifts a hand to trace the mark with his thumb.

She stands still at first, and he feels her warm breath on his wrist.

"Don't," she says quietly. He stops moving, but his fingers linger on her cheek.

Their eyes meet.

Just for a moment.

"Derek … I hate it here," she whispers, like she has so many times before.

So many times.

Her tone is small and lost; he wraps her in his arms on a combination of memory and pure instinct.

Against his body hers is stiff, but still warm and damp from the shower. A contradiction in terms.

(His wife. Always.)

He doesn't speak.

He's done this dance before and talking breaks the spell so he just holds her in silence, moving very slightly back and forth with their breath.

 _You want to dance?_

 _Love to._

Her skin was bare that night in the hospital, where his hand curved at her back. Now his hand rests on a thick towel but he can feel the shape of her through it.

He doesn't say it again: _we don't have to stay._

Maybe he's not sure it's true, not anymore.

He should find some way to assure her she's not alone but the last few years of their marriage it's become harder and harder.

Verbally, anyway.

How's that for comforting? _There, there, honey, you're … only semi-alone. You see, it's complicated._

But then the moment has passed.

"It's okay," she says, her voice slightly muffled against his shoulder. "It's fine." Her hands are on his chest now, pushing him back. She nods briskly like they've just completed a business transaction.

In the face of everything … it seems the least he can do is take her lead.

..

The brief moment of intimacy, the way she molded to him warm and wet fresh from the shower, gives way to a flurry of preparation and when she emerges again it's in a stiffly tailored dress with a collar high enough to hide their earlier discretion. Pearls loop around her throat; her still-damp hair has been pulled back tightly.

And there's makeup on her face now, covering the mark on her cheek.

He's not surprised – but he has the irrational urge to grab her anyway, to wipe the makeup off her face so her mother will be confronted with what she did.

Then again, his experience with the Montgomeries over the years suggests that even if he did do that, Bizzy would find a way not to face … her face. You could hold a blood drenched knife in front of his mother-in-law and she'd politely comment on the carving on the handling. Bizzy will never face anything, and it's not the makeup covering her daughter's face that's keeping her from seeing the mark on her cheek. It's not the perfectly groomed exterior at all keeping her from seeing the damage she's wrought.

She catches him looking.

"Please don't make a fuss," she says quietly before he can speak.

Of course not.

God forbid anyone _make a fuss_ around the Montgomeries.

It's perfectly fine, of course, to play chess with people's lives.

The whole family is a fucking Greek tragedy where no one has the full script but _a fuss_ would be simply unacceptable.

Perhaps it's the heavier than usual makeup, settling in the fine lines around her eyes, but he sees age inescapably in his wife's face and it tightens his stomach. His throat feels thick for some reason, choking on a leftover vow.

There's a reason he swore years ago he'd never leave her alone with them and even now, even after everything, it's one vow he's not ready to break.

..

Her heels tap out a sharp rhythm on the floor as she paces tensely the length of the oversized entryway. She reacts visibly to each sound that could be his arrival; there's something touching about it, but troubling too.

There are others in the house, but they mill about with seemingly studied subtlety. Bizzy is in her office with Susan and a lawyer; really, it's just the two of them.

And then it's not.

"Archie!" Addison covers the space between them, the single word echoing under cavernous ceilings. Derek watches the siblings embrace: in heels, Addison is noticeably taller than her brother. Considering how early Archer started smoking, based on what he's learned from his wife, his height could have turned out worse.

Not that Archer seems to mind.

He looks past his sister to Derek. "Look what the cat dragged in." He sounds almost amused, handing his bags to some member of the staff who's appeared more or less out of thin air. "My erstwhile brother-in-law. Didn't I hear something about you moving across the country?"

Derek grimaces. "I'm sorry for your loss," he says.

"Well, that's kind of you." Archer still has that amused country-club-boy tone to his voice that's set Derek's teeth on edge.

 _Addie loves him_ , he reminds himself. _And he loves her, even if he's an ass, and he's all she had, and he's better than nothing._

Better than nothing: the Montgomery standards … are low.

"I need a drink," Archer says now, patting his sister on the back as she eases away. He looks at her face when he releases her. "What'd you do this time, sis?" he asks casually, gesturing at her cheek. Their embrace must have smudged the makeup, or Archer's more perceptive than he seems.

Addison just raises her eyes heavenward, looking almost amused, and the siblings exchange a private glance that leaves him unsettled.

 _Derek, before you meet my family, I just want you to know, I'm not really like them. Okay? I'm just … not. So don't hate me. Do you promise?_

He promised her, then.

He promised he could never hate her.

There was a time he would have promised her anything.

..

"Addie mixes the best drinks," Archer announces once he's holding a cocktail. "The Captain always said so." He slings his free arm over his sister's shoulders; she still has that – hunted rabbit look, tense, but she doesn't object.

Archer drains his drink in what seems like one gulp. "It's been a long trip," he says – by way of explanation, not apology, when Addison offers to make him another.

Archer doesn't apologize.

No Montgomery apologizes.

… except sometimes.

Except his.

And then Susan is there, her face a polite mask: "Bizzy will see you in the library now."

Everyone is masked, here.

..

The air in the library is thick and still; it smells of flowers and leather. There's the faint edge of cigar smoke – the Captain rarely smoked indoors, to his knowledge, but it clung in a woodsy, purposeful sort of way.

Artifice.

That's polite. That's _Montgomery_ and he won't do, that so:

The man was a fake.

He knew that but this unexpected layer he unfortunately walked in on – the double agent confusion of what the elder Montgomeries were doing during his wife's formative years and what it did to her and _why_.

There's a framed photograph on the bookshelf he's seen before: Archer and Addison as children, with the Captain. They're on a sailboat – of course they're on a sailboat – and his wife is small and freckled with the sun reflecting off her pigtails. She's five or six there, from what he recalls, wearing jaunty stripes and half in profile smiling up at her father.

 _What did you do to her?_

He thought he knew.

He's learning more about the what but it's the why that escapes him.

It's not that he wants to know.

Not exactly. He already knows more than he wants to. But as a clinician he's trained to consider the _why_.

Diagnoses come when you listen instead of talk so he's silent, sitting in a leather club chair. He traces the brass buttons on the arm with the hand he doesn't expect Addison to take while Bizzy sips from a lowball glass and gives polite, emotionless instruction for the disposal of her husband's remains.

 _The body isn't even cold._

The uncharitable thought leaves as quickly as it arrived. He's aware this is planning for a different sort of funeral than the ones he's accustomed to with their church basement receptions, cheap powdered donuts and day old wildflowers.

"Addison will give the eulogy," Bizzy says. There's no difference in her tone from when she mentioned the flowers.

"Me?" He sees Addison glance uncertainly at Archer, lounging insouciantly against the bookshelves with a half drunk cocktail in his hand. He shrugs.

Bizzy turns next to her son.

"Archer … do try to sober up before tomorrow morning, dear." She turns to her secretary before her son can respond and Susan scurries out after her.

Derek is alone in the library now with the Montgomery siblings.

He looks from Archer – whose pose now seems more inebriated than brash – to Addison, whose legs are crossed tightly in the wide club chair, her jaw tense where it's resting on her fingers.

 _He's gone. The Captain is gone._

"Well – here's to Bizzy," Archer says. He raises his glass toward the doorway where their mother retreated. "She really is one of a kind, huh, sis?"

"Archie." Addison stands up briskly, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her skirt. "I'm going to have one of the maids bring you water. Try not to break anything in the meantime."

"That's very … hospitable of you." Archer smirks into what's left of his drink. "If you really want to win hostess of the year, you'll get me another drink while you're at it."

Addison frowns. "I think you've had enough."

Archer drains the glass and then shakes his head thoughtfully. "Bizzy's taking it like a champ, really. It's to be expected, I guess. What's that the old man used to say?" His brow furrows as he apparently attempts to remember something. "When they made her, they threw away the mold," he recites.

His expression looks both fond and chagrined.

Derek is busy parsing the words.

 _When they made her, they threw away the mold._

He would say so.

He would _think_ so.

It's just his wife's frozen profile next to his, clavicles jutting underneath a strand of pearls, hair pulled back so severely his own temples are tingling – is worryingly familiar.

Only one Bizzy?

 _God,_ he hopes so.

* * *

 **Thank you as always for reading. I hope you'll review and let me know your thoughts. I'm excited for the coming chapters - funeral means guests and guests mean lots of familiar faces. Plus ... secrets.**

 **(And if the anonymous reviewer who's waiting for Behind Closed Doors is reading this - I promise I will update it soon! That story freaks me out so I can only work on it in daylight)**


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